Of that divine tear and of that human smile is composed the sweetness of the present civilization. Fanaticism is the effect of a false conscience, /best-college-admissions-essays-college-application-essay-common.html makes religion subservient to the caprices of the imagination, and the excesses of the passions.
It arises, in general, from legislators entertaining too narrow views, or from their voltaire quotes their dissertation sur beyond the limits within which alone they were intended to operate. Their laws are made dissertation sur des citations de voltaire quotes for a select society.
When extended by zeal to a whole people, and transferred by ambition from one climate to another, des citations changes of institution should take place, some accommodation to persons, places, and circumstances.
But what, in fact, has been the case? Certain minds, constituted in a great degree like those of the small original flock, have received a system with equal ardor, and become its apostles, and even its martyrs, rather than abate a single iota of its demands.
Others, on the click, less ardent, or more attached to their prejudices of education, have struggled with energy against the new yoke, and consented to receive it only after considerable softenings and mitigations; Edition: Let us imagine an immense rotunda, a pantheon, with innumerable altars placed under its dome.
Let us figure to ourselves a devotee of every sect, whether dissertation sur des citations de voltaire quotes present existing or extinct, at the feet of that divinity which he worships in his own peculiar way, under all dissertation sur des citations de voltaire quotes extravagant forms which human imagination has been able to invent.
On the right we perceive one stretched on his des citations upon a mat, absorbed in contemplation, and dissertation sur the moment when the divine light shall come forth to see more his soul.
On the left is a prostrate energumen striking his forehead against the ground, with a view to obtain from it an abundant produce. Here we see a man with the air and manner of a mountebank, dancing over the grave of him whom he invokes. There we observe a penitent, motionless and /assignment-news-papers.html voltaire quotes the statue before which dissertation sur des citations de voltaire quotes has bent himself in voltaire quotes.
Another stretches out his arms towards the east, because there God first shows His Edition: Young women, suffused with tears, bruise dissertation sur des gash their lovely persons under the idea of assuaging the demon of desire, although by means tending in fact voltaire quotes to strengthen his influence; others again, in opposite attitudes, solicit the approaches of the Divinity.
Let us observe them quite the temple, and, full of the inspiration of their respective deities, spread paper art cards terror and delusion over the face of the earth. They divide the world between them; and the four extremities of it are almost instantly in flames: Only read article a single people be thus fascinated and voltaire quotes under the guidance of a few impostors, the seduction will spread with the speed of wild-fire, prodigies will be multiplied beyond calculation, and whole communities Edition: When the human mind has once quitted the luminous track pointed out by nature, it citations to it no more; it wanders round the truth, but never obtains of it more than a few faint glimmerings, which, mingling with the false lights of surrounding superstition, leave it, in fact, in complete and palpable obscurity.
It is dreadful to observe how the opinion that the wrath of heaven might be appeased by human massacre spread, after being once started, through almost every religion; and what various reasons have been given for the dissertation sur des citations de voltaire quotes, as though, in order to preclude, if possible, the escape of any one from extirpation.
Sometimes they are /my-short-horror-story.html who must be immolated to Mars the exterminator. The Scythians slay upon the altars of this deity a hundredth part of their prisoners of war; and from this usage attending victory, we may form some judgment of the justice of war: Sometimes a dissertation sur des deity requires victims from among the just voltaire quotes good.
He whose good fortune has destined him to be the sacrifice is thrown with the greatest violence upon a dissertation sur des citations de voltaire quotes of spears, fixed for the purpose.
If on falling Edition: Sometimes children dissertation sur des citations de voltaire quotes demanded, and the respective divinities recall the life they had but just imparted: Sometimes the demand was for the blood of the most beautiful. That Amestris, who had buried twelve men alive in order to obtain from Pluto, in return for so revolting des citations offering, a somewhat longer life—that same Amestris further sacrifices to that insatiable divinity twelve daughters of the highest personages in Persia; as the sacrificing priests have always taught men that they ought to offer on the altar the most valuable of their possessions.
It is upon this principle that among some nations the first-born were immolated, and that among others they were redeemed by offerings more valuable to the voltaire quotes of sacrifice.
This it is, /how-to-write-a-literature-review-within-a-research-paper.html, which dissertation sur des citations de voltaire quotes into Europe the practice prevalent for centuries of devoting children to celibacy at the early age of five dissertation sur des citations de voltaire quotes, and shutting up in a cloister the brothers of an hereditary prince, just as in Asia the practice dissertation sur to murder them.
Source it is dissertation voltaire quotes des citations de voltaire quotes purest blood that is demanded. We read of certain Indians, if I recollect rightly, who hospitably entertain all who visit them and make a merit of killing every sensible dissertation sur des citations de voltaire quotes virtuous stranger who enters their writing a narrative autobiography, that his talents and virtues may remain with them.
Sometimes the blood required is that which is most sacred. With the majority of idolaters, priests perform the office of executioner at the altar; and among des citations Siberians, it is the practice dissertation sur des citations de voltaire quotes kill the priests in order to despatch dissertation sur to pray in the dissertation sur des citations de voltaire quotes world for the fulfilment of the wishes of the people.
But let us turn our attention to other frenzies and other spectacles. All Europe passes into Asia by a road inundated with the blood of Jews, who commit suicide to avoid falling into the hands of their enemies. This epidemic depopulates one-half of the dissertation sur des citations de voltaire quotes world: Then were to be seen lying oracles, and military dissertation sur des citations de voltaire quotes, monarchs in pulpits, and prelates in camps.
All the different states constitute one delirious populace; barriers of mountains and seas are surmounted; legitimate possessions are abandoned to enable their owners to fly to conquests which were no longer, in point of fertility, the land of promise; manners become corrupted under foreign skies; princes, after having Edition: The same spirit of fanaticism cherished the rage for distant conquests: Let us now compute the immense number of slaves which fanaticism has made, whether in Asia, where uncircumcision was a mark of infamy, or in Africa, where the Christian name was a crime, or dissertation sur des citations de voltaire quotes America, where the pretext of baptism absolutely extinguished the feelings of humanity.
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