ern sciolists, repudiated design
in nature. Voltaire, treating upon Spinosism, says: "I am aware that
various philosophers, and especially Lucretius, have denied final causes.
I am also aware that Lucretius, though not very chaste, is a very great
poet in his descriptions and in his morals; but in philosophy I own he
appears to me to be very far behind a college porter or a parish beadle.
To affirm that the eye is not made to see, nor the ear to hear, nor the
stomach to digest, is not this the most revolting folly that ever entered
the human mind? Doubter as I am, this _insanity_ seems to me _evident_,
and _I say so_. For my part, I see in nature, as in the arts, only final
causes; and I believe that an apple tree is made to bear apples, as I
believe that a watch is made to tell the hour." Voltaire charges Warburton
with calumniating Cicero, by saying that Cicero said, "It is unworthy of
the majesty of the empire to adore one only God." Voltaire's words are
these: "Warburton, like his contemporaries, has calumniated Cicero and
ancient Rome." He then gives the above quotation, along with a short
comment in Cicero's defense, and closes with the following words: "It is
then quite false that Cicero, or any other Roman, ever said that it did
not become the majesty of the empire to acknowledge a Supreme God. Their
Jupiter, the Zeus of the Greeks, the Jehovah of the Phoenicians, was always
considered as the master of the secondary gods. This great truth can not
be too forcibly inculcated." Voltaire was a Deist.

Lucretius, according to Voltaire, denied design in nature. Voltaire said,
in philosophy, he was very far behind a college porter or a parish beadle.

Spinosa was a Pantheist. Voltaire says, "He frequently contradicted
himself; that he had not always clear ideas; that he sometimes clung to
one plank, sometimes to another."

Voltaire says: "A natural philosopher of some reputation had no doubt that
this 'Needham,' who made the eels, 'was a profound Atheist,' who concluded
that since eels could be made of rye meal, men might be made of wheat
flour; that nature and chemistry produce all; and that it was demonstrated
we may very well dispense with an all forming God." Voltaire calls this
_an unparalleled blunder_. D'Holbach, the author of the "System de la
Nature," was an Atheist, so were his assistants in the production of that
work.

Voltaire addresses the author of that work in the following words: "In the
state of do