Montesquieu says that the Scythians rent their slaves' eyes, so that
they might be less distracted while they were churning their butter;
that is just how the inquisition functions, and in the land where this
monster reigns almost everybody is blind. In England people have had two
eyes for more than two hundred years; the French are starting to open
one eye; but sometimes there are men in power who do not want the people
to have even this one eye open.
These poor persons in power are like Doctor Balouard of the Italian
Comedy, who does not want to be served by anyone but the dolt
Harlequin, and who is afraid of having too shrewd a valet.
Compose some odes in praise of My Lord Superbus Fadus, some madrigals
for his mistress; dedicate a book on geography to his door-keeper, you
will be well-received; enlighten mankind, you will be exterminated.
Descartes was forced to leave his country, Gassendi was calumniated,
Arnauld dragged out his days in exile; every philosopher is treated as
the prophets were among the Jews.
Who would believe that in the eighteenth century a philosopher was
dragged before the secular tribunals, and treated as impious by the
tribunals of arguments, for having said that men could not practise the
arts if they had no hands? I do not despair that soon the first person
who is so insolent as to say that men could not think if they had no
heads will be immediately condemned to the galleys; "for," some young
graduate will say to him, "the soul is a pure spirit, the head is only
matter; God can put the soul in the heel, as well as in the brain;
therefore I denounce you as impious.
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