. Mediæval and modern history . ex-pression, forcible and striking, towhat the people were vaguelythinking and feeling. In the useof satire and irony he never hada superior, if a peer. He hasbeen well called the magician ofthe art of writing. He had amost marvelous faculty of condensing thought; putting wholephilosophies in an epigram, he supplied the French people withproverbs for a century. He loved justice, in Carlyles phrase, asit should be loved. His aim was to do away with injustice, preju-dices, and superstitions, to establish equality, and to make jus-tice and reason dominant in human
. Mediæval and modern history . ex-pression, forcible and striking, towhat the people were vaguelythinking and feeling. In the useof satire and irony he never hada superior, if a peer. He hasbeen well called the magician ofthe art of writing. He had amost marvelous faculty of condensing thought; putting wholephilosophies in an epigram, he supplied the French people withproverbs for a century. He loved justice, in Carlyles phrase, asit should be loved. His aim was to do away with injustice, preju-dices, and superstitions, to establish equality, and to make jus-tice and reason dominant in human affairs. He disbelieved inrevealed religion;^ he would have men follow simply their innersense of what is right and reasonable. His influence upon Fred-erick the Great of Prussia and upon other reforming kings andministers was very great. In truth his writings stirred all Europe 3 By some of Voltaires disciples his doctrines were developed into atheism; butVoltaire hirnself was a deist, combating alike 9theism and PlG. 84. Voltaire. (From astatue by Hoiidoii) 444 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION [§ 501 as well as all France and did so much to prepare the minds andhearts of men for the Revolution and to determine its coursethat in one sense there was much truth in his declaration, I haveaccomplished more in my day than either Luther or Calvin. Rousseau (1712-1778), like Voltaire, had neither faith norhope in existing institutions. Society and government seemedto him contrivances designed by the strong for the enslavementof the weak: Man was born free and is everywhere in chains is the burden of his he would do awaywith all these things. He wouldhave men give up their artificial,complex life in society and returnto the simplicity of what he calleda state of nature. He idealizedthe life of savages and declaredthat untutored tribes were hap-pier than civilized men. He drewsuch an idyllic picture of the lifeof man in a state of nature thatVoltaire, after
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