Morality 



"Et d'ailes et de faux depouille desormais, 



Sur les mondes detruits le temps dort, 

 immobile." 1 



But do not rely overmuch on these heroic 

 remedies. Let us take Candide's 2 advice 

 and cultivate our garden; let us water our 

 cabbage-patch and accept things as they are. 



Nature, a ruthless wet-nurse, knows no- 

 thing of pity. After pampering her charges, 

 she takes them by the foot, whirls them 

 round her head and dashes them to pieces 

 against a rock. This is her way of dimin- 

 ishing the burden of her excessive fertility. 



Death, well and good; but of what use is 

 pain? When a mad Dog endangers the 

 public safety, do we speak of inflicting atro- 

 cious sufferings upon him? We put a bullet 

 into him ; we do not torture him : we defend 

 our own lives. In the old days, however, the 

 law, with a great parade of ermine and red 

 gowns, used to draw and quarter criminals, 

 to break them on the wheel, to roast them 

 at the stake, to burn them in a brimstone 

 shirt: it pretended to expiate the crime by 

 the horror of the torture. Morality has 



1 "And thenceforth, of his wings and scythe despoiled, 



Time sleeps, unmoving on the worlds destroyed." 



2 Voltaire's story of that name. Translator's Note. 



167 



