{"id":160,"date":"2017-07-05T16:49:19","date_gmt":"2017-07-05T08:49:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.zhanyuwang.xin\/wordpress\/?p=160"},"modified":"2017-07-05T16:49:19","modified_gmt":"2017-07-05T08:49:19","slug":"voltaire-and-the-french-enlightenment-5","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.zhanyuwang.xin\/wordpress\/index.php\/2017\/07\/05\/voltaire-and-the-french-enlightenment-5\/","title":{"rendered":"Voltaire and the French Enlightenment 5"},"content":{"rendered":"

It was an England, too, that throbbed with a virile intellectual activity.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

throbbed with<\/strong>\u00a0= full of.<\/p>\n

If you describe a man as virile<\/strong>, you mean that he has the qualities that a man is traditionally expected to have, such as strength and sexual power.<\/p>\n

Hobbes (1588\u20131679) had\u00a0carried out the skeptical spirit of the Renaissance, and the practical spirit of his master, into so\u00a0complete and outspoken a materialism as would have won him in France<\/strong> the honor of martyrdom for a\u00a0fallacy.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Hobbes worked for some time as a secretary to Francis Bacon.<\/p>\n

If someone suffers martyrdom<\/strong>, they are killed or made to suffer greatly because of their religious or political beliefs.<\/p>\n

Collins, Tyndal and other\u00a0deists were re-affirming their faith in God while calling into question every other doctrine of the\u00a0established church.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Deism<\/strong> is the belief that there is a God who made the world but does not influence human lives.<\/p>\n

\u201cNot long\u00a0ago,\u201d he writes, \u201ca distinguished company were discussing the trite and frivolous question, who was\u00a0the greatest man,\u2014C\u00e6sar, Alexander, Tamerlane, or Cromwell? Some one answered that without\u00a0doubt it was Isaac Newton. And rightly: for it is to him who masters our minds by the force of truth,\u00a0and not to those who enslave them by violence, that we owe our reverence.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

If you say that something such as an idea, remark, or story is trite<\/strong>, you mean that it is dull and boring because it has been said or told too many times.<\/p>\n

If you describe someone as frivolous<\/strong>, you mean they behave in a silly or light-hearted way, rather than being serious and sensible.<\/p>\n

… he did not dare to print them, for they praised \u201cperfidious\u00a0Albion\u201d too highly to suit the taste of the royal censor.\u00a0 They contrasted English political liberty and\u00a0intellectual independence with French tyranny and bondage, they condemned the idle aristocracy\u00a0and the tithe-absorbing clergy of France, with their perpetual recourse to the Bastille as the answer to\u00a0every question and every doubt; they urged the middle classes to rise to their proper place in the state,\u00a0as these classes had in England. Without quite knowing or intending it, these letters were the first\u00a0cock\u2019s crow<\/strong> of the Revolution.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Bondage<\/strong> is the condition of being someone’s property and having to work for them.<\/p>\n

A tithe<\/strong> is a fixed amount of money or goods that is given regularly in order to support a church, a priest, or a charity.<\/p>\n

For five years Voltaire enjoyed again that Parisian life whose wine flowed in his\u00a0veins and whose spirit flowed from his pen. <\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u738b\u5b5d\u4f2f\u8a00\uff1a\u540d\u58eb\u4e0d\u5fc5\u987b\u5947\u624d\uff0c\u4f46\u4f7f\u5e38\u5f97\u65e0\u4e8b\uff0c\u75db\u996e\u9152\uff0c\u719f\u8bfb\u300a\u79bb\u9a9a\u300b\uff0c\u4fbf\u53ef\u79f0\u540d\u58eb<\/strong>\u3002\u2014\u2014\u4e16\u8bf4\u65b0\u8bed\u00b7\u4efb\u8bde<\/p>\n

\u95fb\u4e00\u591a\u5148\u751f\u4e00\u8fb9\u62bd\u70df\uff0c\u4e00\u8fb9\u8bb2\u8bfe\uff0c\u5e38\u541f\u66f0\u201c\u75db\u996e\u9152\uff0c\u719f\u8bfb\u79bb\u9a9a\uff0c\u65b9\u4e3a\u771f\u540d\u58eb\u201d\uff01<\/p>\n

And then some miscreant of a publisher, getting hold of\u00a0the Letters on the English, turned them without the author\u2019s permission into print, …<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

A miscreant<\/strong> is someone who has done something illegal or behaved badly.<\/p>\n

Like a good\u00a0philosopher, he took to his heels\u2014merely utilizing the occasion to elope with another man\u2019s wife.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

If you take to your heels<\/strong>, you run away.<\/p>\n

When two people elope<\/strong>, they go away secretly together to get married.<\/p>\n

The Marquise du Chatelet was twenty-eight; Voltaire, alas, was already forty. She was a\u00a0remarkable woman: she had studied mathematics with the redoubtable Maupertuis, and then with\u00a0Clairaut; she had written a learnedly annotated translation of Newton\u2019s Principia; she was soon to\u00a0receive higher rating than Voltaire in a contest for a prize offered by the French Academy for an essay\u00a0on the physics of fire; in short she was precisely the kind of woman who never elopes.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u00c9milie du Ch\u00e2telet<\/h6>\n

In classical mechanics, Maupertuis’ principle<\/strong> (named after Pierre Louis Maupertuis), is that the path followed by a physical system is the one of least length (with a suitable interpretation of path and length).<\/p>\n

Clairaut’s theorem<\/strong> is a general mathematical law giving the surface gravity on a viscous rotating ellipsoid in equilibrium under the action of its gravitational field and centrifugal force.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

In the frontispiece to Voltaire’s book on Newton’s philosophy, du Ch\u00e2telet appears as Voltaire’s muse<\/strong>, reflecting Newton’s heavenly insights down to Voltaire.<\/p>\n

\n

and\u00a0decided that her chateau at Cirey was an admirable refuge from the inclement political weather of Paris.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

A ch\u00e2teau<\/span> <\/strong>is a large country house or castle in France.<\/p>\n

Cirey is a commune in the Haute-Sa\u00f4ne department in the region of Bourgogne-Franche-Comt\u00e9 in eastern France.<\/p>\n

In France and some other countries, a commune<\/strong> is a town, village, or area which has its own council.<\/p>\n

Inclement<\/strong> weather is unpleasantly cold or stormy.<\/p>\n

Because of the mariages de\u00a0convenance which forced rich old men on young women who had little taste for senility but much\u00a0hunger for romance, the morals of the day permitted a lady to add a lover to her m\u00e9nage, …<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

If old people become senile<\/strong>, they become confused, can no longer remember things, and are unable to look after themselves.<\/p>\n

In the chateau at Cirey they did not spend their time billing and cooing.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

If you bill and coo<\/strong> with someone you love, you talk quietly to them and kiss them.<\/p>\n

He was\u00a0happy to be the centre of this corrupt and brilliant world; he took nothing too seriously, and for a\u00a0while made \u201cRire et faire rire\u201d his motto.\u00a0Catherine of Russia called him \u201cthe divinity of gayety.\u201d\u00a0\u201cIf Nature had not made us a little frivolous,\u201d he said, \u201cwe should be most wretched. It is because one\u00a0can be frivolous that the majority do not hang themselves.\u201d \u00a0 There was nothing of the dyspeptic\u00a0Carlyle about him. \u201cDulce est desipere in loco. Woe to philosophers who cannot laugh away their\u00a0wrinkles. I look upon solemnity as a disease.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Rire et faire rire<\/strong> (French):\u00a0Laugh and make laugh.<\/p>\n

Dulce est desipere in loco<\/strong> (Latin):\u00a0Sweet, sometime in place.<\/p>\n

Dyspepsia<\/strong> is the same as indigestion.<\/p>\n

If you say woe<\/strong> betide\/to anyone who does a particular thing, you mean that something unpleasant will happen to them if they do it.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Thomas Carlyle<\/h6>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It was an England, too, that throbbed with a virile intellectual activity. throbbed with\u00a0= full of. If you describe a man as virile, you mean that he has the qualities that a man is traditionally expected to have, such as strength and sexual power. Hobbes (1588\u20131679) had\u00a0carried out the skeptical […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-160","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-story-of-philosophy"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zhanyuwang.xin\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zhanyuwang.xin\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zhanyuwang.xin\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zhanyuwang.xin\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zhanyuwang.xin\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=160"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.zhanyuwang.xin\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zhanyuwang.xin\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=160"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zhanyuwang.xin\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=160"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zhanyuwang.xin\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=160"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}