s one of the
best men in England. As to the evil which darkens the world, we cannot
understand it; let us not make it worse by vain perplexities; let
us hope that a future life will right the balance of things; and,
meanwhile, let us attend to the counsels of moderation and good sense;
let the narrow bounds of our knowledge at least teach us the lesson
of toleration.

Applied to history, such ideas lead Voltaire, in striking contrast
with Bossuet, to ignore the supernatural, to eliminate the
Providential order, and to seek the explanation of events in human
opinion, in human sentiments, in the influence of great men, even
in the influence of petty accident, the caprice of _sa Majeste le
Hasard_. In the epoch of classical antiquity--which Voltaire
understood ill--man had advanced from barbarism to a condition of
comparative well-being and good sense; in the Christian and mediaeval
period there was a recoil and retrogression; in modern times has begun
a renewed advance. In fixing attention on the _esprit et moeurs_ of
nations--their manners, opinions, institutions, sentiments,
prejudices--Voltaire was original, and rendered most important
service to the study of history. Although his blindness to the
significance of religious phenomena is a grave defect, his historical
scepticism had its uses. As a writer of historical narrative he is
admirably lucid and rapid; nor should the ease of his narration
conceal the fact that he worked laboriously and carefully among
original sources. With his _Charles XII._, his _Pierre le Grand_,
his _Siecle de Louis XIV._, we may class the _Henriade_ as a piece
of history; its imaginative power is not that of an epic, but it is
an interpretation of a fragment of French history in the light of
one generous idea--that of religious toleration.

Filled with destructive passion against the Church, Voltaire, in
affairs of the State, was a conservative. His ideal for France was
an intelligent despotism. But if a conservative, he was one of a
reforming spirit. He pleaded for freedom in the internal trade of
province with province, for legal and administrative uniformity
throughout the whole country, for a reform of the magistracy, for
a milder code of criminal jurisprudence, for attention to public
hygiene. His programme was not ambitious, but it was reasonable, and
his efforts for the general welfare have been justified by time.

As a literary critic he was again conservative. He belonged to the