Chapter I: Preliminary

PAGE

Importance of Voltaire’s name 1

Catholicism, Calvinism, and the Renaissance 1

Voltairism the Renaissance of the eighteenth century 4

His power the result of his sincerity, penetration, and
courage 6

Different tempers proper for different eras 11

Voltaire’s freedom from intellectual cowardice 12

And from worldly indifference to truth and justice 13

Reason and humanity only a single word to him 15

His position towards the purely literary life 17

Enervating regrets that the movement had not a less
violent leader 19

The share of chance in providing leaders 20

Combination of favourable circumstances in Voltaire’s
case 22

Occasion and necessity of the movement 24

Age of Lewis XIV. entirely loyal to its own ideas 25

Subsequent discredit of these ideas 26

Preparation for abandonment of the old system by
Descartes and Bayle 29

Voltaire continues the work, not wholly to the disadvantage
of the old system 31

No ascetic element in the Voltairean revolt 33

Why primarily an intellectual movement 34

The hostile memory of Christians for it 37

Comte’s estimate of it 37

The estimate of culture 40

Some pleas on the other side 40