Beschreibung:

VOLTAIRE, FRANÇOIS MARIE AROUET DE. Letter signed ("Voltaire"), to the Rev. Père Charles Porée, Cirey, 17 November 1738. 3 pages, 4to, integral address leaf wwith panel in Voltaire's hand, original wax seal in 2 halves, 2 holes to first leaf, one of the missing pieces attached to the seal, a few short fold breaks and marginal tears, some light staining . VOLTAIRE GIVES HIS ASSESSMENT OF NEWTON AND DESCARTES The Jesuit Father Charles Porée had been Voltaire's professor of rhetoric at the Collège Louis-le-Grand. Venerated by his students, he remained until his death the close friend and literary adviser of a circle of disciples of whom Voltaire was the most illustrious. The extent of his influence on the philosophe is made clear in this unusually warm and respectful letter, written during the period of Voltaire's immersion in physics (he maintained a large laboratory in the country house at Cirey that he shared with his mistress Mme. du Châtelet). Apologizing for a misunderstanding that had prevented Father Porée from receiving a copy of the recently published Eléments de la philosophie de Newton , written with Mme. du Châtelet, Voltaire favorably compares Newton to Descartes, while intimating that his allegiance to the former was really based on his affection for his old teacher: "I owe you more than one kind of hommage, it was you who taught me to think. The kind of eloquence that you practice, being nothing other than the ornament of truth, leads directly to philosophy. It is true that this philosophy of Newton's seems quite strange, but Descartes's ruminations were even more so, and they were what's more founded on neither geometry nor experience, the unique sources of philosophical truth. "I dare not affirm that Newton was correct nonetheless, I can only speak for the tender attachment that I will have for you as long as I live. I have always loved and respected you. These sentiments are felt by all who have had the good fortune to have been your students. I have remained friends with all of those who distinguished themselves a bit in your eyes...It is not that I am writing de ponto , for although I live far from Paris I am far from living among barbarians...Nothing could add to the happiness of my tranquil and busy life more than the knowledge that you still love me, and that I can count on your lessons and on your attachment. I am devoted not only to you but also to the Society that educated me, in fact I am closely united to it by my sentiments concerning the most worthy subjects, for, after all, I believe that man is free. I feel only that I am not free to not love