VI PREFACE. 



M. Berville ; but he will permit me to express no 

 small satisfaction at finding that, after all, he con- 

 firms almost every opinion which I had ventured to 

 pronounce upon Voltaire, the subject to which his 

 remarks are almost exclusively confined. As for the 

 want of novelty, nothing can be more perilous than 

 running after discoveries on the merits of works 

 that have been before the world for almost a cen- 

 tury, and on which the most unlimited discussion has 

 taken place. It may, however, perhaps be thought 

 that, in one respect, the Life of Voltaire differs from 

 its predecessors. There is certainly no bias either 

 of nation, or of party, or of sect shewn in the opinions 

 given whether of the personal merits or the works 

 of that great man. On one subject M. Berville evi- 

 dently has entirely misapprehended me, when he says 

 I have expressed an opinion different from Clairaut's 

 on Voltaire's scientific capacity. Clairaut's judgment 

 was confined apparently to subjects of pure mathe- 

 matics; and I have only ventured to wish that either 

 it had been expressly so limited, or that it had been 

 so understood by Voltaire, whose capacity for experi- 

 mental philosophy, though not for the mathematics, I 

 ventured to consider was very great. Of this I have 

 given the proofs, and M. Berville considers them as 

 an important addition to what had hitherto been said 

 of Voltaire. 



Respecting the Life of Rousseau, his opinion is 

 much more severe; but on this subject I never can 

 hope to agree with a writer who manifestly regards 



