Chapter II: English Influences

Significance of the journey to England 44

His birth and youthful history 45

Ninon de l’Enclos, Chaulieu, and the Regency 46

Manner of life from 1716 49

Affront from the Chevalier de Rohan 53

Leaves France 54

Had previously been no more than a vague _esprit fort_ 56

Le Pour et le Contre 57

Freethinking a reality in England 58

Condorcet’s account of the effect of England upon Voltaire 59

Social and political consequence of men of letters 59

Evil effect of this in France 60

Freedom of speech 61

Newton’s discoveries 65

Their true influence on Voltaire 67

Locke 67

Profound effect of Lockian common-sense on Voltaire 70

Contrast between social condition of England and France 73

Voltaire’s imperfect appreciation of the value and working
of a popular government 76

Confounds two distinct conceptions of civil liberty 79

A confusion shared by most of his countrymen 79

The Church of England 82

The Quakers 84

Voltaire’s diligence in study of English literature 86

And in mastering one side of the deistical controversy 88

Through the influence of the deists on Voltaire, the genius
of Protestantism entered France 91

Limited consistency of Voltaire’s philosophy 93

English deism contrasted with that of Leibnitz and with
the atheism of D’Holbach 95