If they are still respected, it is because they were just and that
they taught men to be so.
One cannot read certain passages of Plato, and notably the admirable
exordium of the laws of Zaleucus, without feeling in one's heart the
love of honourable and generous actions. The Romans have their Cicero,
who alone is worth perhaps all the philosophers of Greece. After him
come men still more worthy of respect, but whom one almost despairs of
imitating; Epictetus in bondage, the Antonines and the Julians on the
throne.
Which is the citizen among us who would deprive himself, like Julian,
Antoninus and Marcus Aurelius, of all the delicacies of our flabby and
effeminate lives? who would sleep as they did on the ground? who would
impose on himself their frugality? who, as they did, would march
barefoot and bareheaded at the head of the armies, exposed now to the
heat of the sun, now to the hoar-frost? who would command all their
passions as they did? There are pious men among us; but where are the
wise men? where are the resolute, just and tolerant souls?
There have been philosophers of the study in France; and all, except
Montaigne, have been persecuted. It is, I think, the last degree of the
malignity of our nature, to wish to oppress these very philosophers who
would correct it.
I quite understand that the fanatics of one sect slaughter the
enthusiasts of another sect, that the Franciscans hate the Dominicans,
and that a bad artist intrigues to ruin one who surpasses him; but that
the wise Charron should have been threatened with the loss of his life,
that the learned and generous Ramus should have been assassinated, that
Descartes should have been forced to flee to Holland to escape the fury
of the ignorant, that Gassendi should have been obliged to withdraw
several times to Digne, far from the calumnies of Paris; these things
are a nation's eternal shame.
Pages:
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255