132 VOLTAIRE. 



the sacred right to exercise the reason upon all subjects, 

 unfettered by prejudice, uncontrolled by authority, 

 whether of great names or of temporal power. That 

 he combated many important truths which he found 

 enveloped in a cloud of errors, and could not patiently 

 sift, so as to separate the right from the wrong, is un- 

 deniably true ; that he carried on his conflict, whether 

 with error or with truth, in an offensive manner, and 

 by the use of unlawful weapons, has been freely ad- 

 mitted. But we owe to him the habit of scrutinizing, 

 both in sacred matters and in profane, the merits of 

 whatever is presented for our belief, of examining 

 boldly the foundations of received opinions, of making 

 probability a part of the consideration in all that is re- 

 lated, of calling in plain reason and common sense to 

 assist in our councils when grave matters are under dis- 

 cussion ; nor can any one since the days of Luther be 

 named, to whom the spirit of free inquiry, nay, the 

 emancipation of the human mind from spiritual ty- 

 ranny, owes a more lasting debt of gratitude. No one 

 beyond the pale of the Romish church ever denies his 

 obligation to the great Reformer, whom he thanks and 

 all but reveres for having broken the chains of her 

 spiritual thraldom. All his coarseness, all his low 

 ribaldry, all that makes the reading of his works in 

 many places disgusting, in not a few offensive to com- 

 mon decency,* and even to the decorum proper to the 



* See particularly his abominable sermon at Wittenberg, on mar- 

 riage, actually preached, and of so immoral a tendency, as well as 

 couched in such indelicate language, that it can only be referred to 

 without translation, by Bishop Bossuet and others ; also his ' Table- 

 talk/ in those parts where he treats of women, and describes with 



