Recent events here in France have prompted this post _ Voltaire's analysis and description has been recommended to us by a young but highly experienced and successful teacher. It is an excellent approach to improve awareness both in youngsters seeking guidance and for adults looked upon for guidance in response to current affairs involving increasing violence and now fanaticism and barbaric terrorism.
FANATICISM - analysed and described by Voltaire
(translated to English ref. web link below)
Extract of text often used for French
Higher Certificate (BAC- Baccalaureate.
English
Translation ref:
Bartholomew Diaz was a fanatical monk. He had a
brother at Nuremberg called John Diaz, who was an enthusiastic adherent to the
doctrines of Luther, and completely convinced that the pope was Antichrist, and
had the sign of the beast. Bartholomew, still more ardently convinced that the
pope was god upon earth, quits Rome, determined either to convert or murder his
brother; he accordingly murdered him! Here is a perfect case of fanaticism. We
have noticed and done justice to this Diaz elsewhere.
Polyeuctes, who went to the temple on a day of solemn
festival, to throw down and destroy the statues and ornaments, was a fanatic
less horrible than Diaz, but not less foolish. The assassins of Francis, duke
of Guise, of William, prince of Orange, of King Henry III., of King Henry IV.,
and various others, were equally possessed, equally labouring under morbid fury,
with Diaz.
The most striking example of fanaticism is that
exhibited on the night of St. Bartholomew, when the people of Paris rushed from
house to house to stab, slaughter, throw out of the window, and tear in pieces
their fellow citizens not attending mass. Guyon, Patouillet, Chaudon, Nonnotte,
and the ex-Jesuit Paulian, are merely fanatics in a corner — contemptible
beings whom we do not think of guarding against. They would, however, on a day
of St. Bartholomew, perform wonders.
There are some cold-blooded fanatics; such as those
judges who sentence men to death for no other crime than that of thinking
differently from themselves, and these are so much the more guilty and
deserving of the execration of mankind, as, not labouring under madness like the
Clements, Châtels, Ravaillacs, and Damiens, they might be deemed capable of
listening to reason.
There is no other remedy for this epidemical malady
than that spirit of philosophy, which, extending itself from one to another, at
length civilizes and softens the manners of men and prevents the access of the
disease. For when the disorder has made any progress, we should, without loss
of time, fly from the seat of it, and wait till the air has become purified
from contagion. Law and religion are not completely efficient against the
spiritual pestilence. Religion, indeed, so far from affording proper nutriment
to the minds of patients labouring under this infectious and infernal distemper,
is converted, by the diseased process of their minds, into poison. These malignant
devotees have incessantly before their eyes the example of Ehud, who
assassinated the king of Eglon; of Judith, who cut off the head of Holofernes
while in bed with him; of Samuel, hewing in pieces King Agag; of Jehoiada the
priest, who murdered his queen at the horse-gate. They do not perceive that
these instances, which are respectable in antiquity, are in the present day
abominable. They derive their fury from religion, decidedly as religion
condemns it.
Laws are yet more powerless against these paroxysms of
rage. To oppose laws to cases of such a description would be like reading a
decree of council to a man in a frenzy. The persons in question are fully
convinced that the Holy Spirit which animates and fills them is above all laws;
that their own enthusiasm is, in fact, the only law which they are bound to
obey.
What can be said in answer to a man who says he will
rather obey God than men, and who consequently feels certain of meriting heaven
by cutting your throat?
When once fanaticism has gangrened the brain of any
man the disease may be regarded as nearly incurable. I have seen
Convulsionaries who, while speaking of the miracles of St. Paris, gradually
worked themselves up to higher and more vehement degrees of agitation till
their eyes became inflamed, their whole frames shook, their countenances became
distorted by rage, and had any man contradicted them he would inevitably have
been murdered.
Yes, I have seen these wretched Convulsionaries
writhing their limbs and foaming at their mouths. They were exclaiming, “We
must have blood.” They effected the assassination of their king by a lackey,
and ended with exclaiming against philosophers.
Fanatics are
nearly always under the direction of knaves, who place the dagger in their
hands. These knaves resemble Montaigne’s “Old Man of the Mountain,” who, it is
said, made weak persons imagine, under his treatment of them, that they really
had experienced the joys of paradise, and promised them a whole eternity of
such delights if they would go and assassinate such as he should point out to
them. There has been only one religion in the world which has not been polluted
by fanaticism and that is the religion of the learned in China.
The above text is often studied for French Higher
Certificate (BAC-
Baccalaureate.
Note on:-
The religion
of the learned in China. (Buddhism rather
than Confucianism)
But it
continues…..
The different sects of ancient philosophers were not
merely exempt from this pest of human society, but they were antidotes to it:
for the effect of philosophy is to render the soul tranquil, and fanaticism and tranquillity are
totally incompatible. That our own holy religion has been so frequently
polluted by this infernal fury must be imputed to the folly and madness of
mankind. Thus Icarus abused the wings which he received for his benefit. They
were given him for his salvation and they insured his destruction:
Ainsi du plumage qu’il eut
Icare
pervertit l’usage;
Il le reçut pour son salut,
Il
s’en servit pour son dommage.
— Bertaut, bishop
of Séez.
FURTHER COMMENT
I feel it fitting that this translation was brought to us from the far off Australia thus spanning the numerous english speaking regions, countries and continents struggling to implement proper education and struggle against fanaticism.
PLEASE SHARE ESPECIALLY VOLTAIRE'S TRANSLATED TEXT
MORE CHECK FULL TEXT IN ENGLISH FROM THE UNIVERSITY OF ADELAIDE AUSTRALIA.
https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/v/voltaire/dictionary/chapter199.htmlAPPOLOGIES TO MY AUSTRALIAN FRIENDS FOR "MY ENTHOUSIASM"; MODIFYING US-SPELLING OF "LABOR" TO UK-SPELLING "LABOUR"
Other recommended reading: "Peanuts" by Charles (Charlie)Shultz
PS.
In memoriam: Lockerbie 1988
I shall post Voltaire's original "letter" in french in my next post.
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