Chapter 41 voltaire leader of the enlightenment

"Enlightenment" is to open up wisdom, liberate people from the ignorant, backward, and dark feudal society through education and propaganda, and make people get rid of superstition and prejudice spread by the church, so as to fight for freedom and equality.The Enlightenment Movement was an anti-feudal and anti-ecclesiastical ideological and cultural revolutionary movement that occurred in Europe in the 18th century. It made ideological preparations and public opinion propaganda for the bourgeois revolution. The center of the Enlightenment was in France.The leader of the French Enlightenment was Voltaire.His thoughts had a great impact on Europe in the 18th century, so later people once said: "The 18th century was Voltaire's century."

Voltaire wrote a large number of works in literature, history, philosophy, natural science and politics, with nearly a hundred volumes.Famous figures in the French Enlightenment, such as Diderot, Rousseau, Condillac, Buffon, etc., are all his descendants. They highly respect him and recognize him as their mentor.As Victor Hugo pointed out, the name of Voltaire stands not for a person but for an entire era. Voltaire's original name was François Arrouet. In order to avoid the persecution of the feudal autocratic forces, he published anti-feudal works under more than 100 pen names. "Voltaire" is just the pen name people are most familiar with.

Voltaire was born in Paris in 1694 into a middle-class family, the son of a lawyer.Voltaire studied at the Great Louis College founded by the Jesuits as a teenager, and later studied law for a period of time, but gave up soon after.As a young Parisian, he soon became famous: he was quick-witted, witty, and his jokes and curses turned into poetry.But under the old French regime such talents would have been dangerous.Voltaire was thrown into the Bastille prison for writing some political poems. Shortly after Voltaire's release in 1718, his play Oedipus was staged in Paris to great success.Voltaire was already famous at the age of 24, and for the remaining 60 years of his life he was a major figure in French literature.

As the most astute and famous speaker of his time, Voltaire was considered by some French aristocrats to lack the humility expected of a commoner.This led to a public polemic between Voltaire and an aristocratic knight of Rohan, who then instigated a gang of scoundrels to suddenly beat Voltaire and throw him in the Bastille.He was released and went to England on the condition that Voltaire agreed to leave France. Voltaire's life in England was a major turning point in his life.He read through the works of famous British people such as Locke, Bacon, Newton and Shakespeare, and got acquainted with the main British thinkers at that time.Voltaire was impressed by Shakespeare, as well as English science and empiricism.What impressed him most was the British political system.

Voltaire returned to France and wrote his first major philosophical work, the Philosophical Letters.The publication of the book marked the real beginning of the French Enlightenment.In the Philosophical Letters, Voltaire gives a generally favorable description of the English political system and of Locke and other English thinkers.The publication of the book aroused the anger of the French authorities, and Voltaire was forced to leave Paris. Voltaire spent most of the next 15 years at Ciray, in eastern France.There he became the mistress of Lady Chaterley, the intelligent and refined wife of a Marquis. In 1750, Prince Frederick of Prussia wrote a letter to Voltaire to express his admiration for him, and Voltaire went to Germany at his invitation.Voltaire spent three years at the court of Frederick in Potsdam.At first he was intimate with the brilliant and intelligent Frederick, but the two eventually quarreled. Voltaire left Germany in 1753.

As a philosopher, Voltaire was far less innovative than his peers.He largely took ideas from others such as John Locke and Francis Bacon, rephrased them, and popularized them.It was through Voltaire's writings (more than through anyone else's) that the ideas of democracy, freedom of religion, and freedom of thought spread throughout France, and many other parts of Europe. Voltaire, the sworn enemy of the Catholic Church, lashed out at it, calling it "a superstitious demon and a mad hydra."He fiercely criticized the Pope, saying he was a liar like a magician.Voltaire has always been a firm believer in freedom of religious belief, opposed to absolute monarchy, opposed to religious power, and advocated a British-style constitutional monarchy.But as he approached his seventies, there were several appalling incidents of persecution of Protestants in France.Enraged, he committed himself to an intellectual crusade against religious fanaticism.He wrote a number of political pamphlets attacking religious intolerance.He also likes to end each of his autographed letters with "Erasez I'infame," which means "destroy that which is notorious."For Voltaire, this notoriety was religious bigotry and fanaticism.

In his later years, the painful experience made Voltaire lose confidence in all the monarchs, determined not to associate with any monarchs, and used his accumulated wealth to buy a small piece of real estate in the border area between France and Switzerland and settled down.Here, while he was engaged in creation, he wrote "The Honest Man" and "The Innocence" and other immortal masterpieces; at the same time, he kept in touch with the French Enlightenment personnel and supported their work. Those who were persecuted by the church fought for justice until his death on May 30, 1778.