by Wendy McElroy
In 1733, the philosopher who has been credited with ushering in the French Enlightenment, Francois Marie Arouet de Voltaire, published a pivotal work entitled Letters Concerning the English Nation(1). Although written in French, the twenty-four letters first issued from London in an English translation, because the material was considered too politically dangerous to the author and to whomever printed it for the work to appear in France.(2)
Voltaire was no stranger to such controversy. Some years before, after being beaten up by the hirelings of an aristocrat whom he had offended, Voltaire had been thrown into the Bastille (for the second time). He had been released after pledging to stay at least fifty leagues away from Paris. Voltaire chose to go as far as England, where he stayed for roughly two and a half years. The result of the sojourn was the Letters on English religion and politics, which finally appeared in France in 1734 as Lettres philosophiques, or Philosophical Letters.
Written as though to explain English society to a friend back in France, Letter Five, On the Church of England, began with the observation, "This is the country of sects. An Englishman, as a freeman, goes to Heaven by whatever road he pleases."(22) The statement had profound implications for any citizen of France -- a nation that had almost destroyed itself in order to establish Catholicism as the only practiced religion.
In the next paragraph of Letter Five, Voltaire pursued a theme that contributed heavily to the danger of publishing his work in France. He examined the intellectual and institutional foundation of England's religious tolerance. He rejected a political explanation. Referring to the established Church of England, he acknowledged that politics strongly favored prejudice rather than tolerance. (3) He wrote, "No one can hold office in England or in Ireland unless he is a faithful Anglican."(22) Such political exclusion hardly promoted religious good will. Nor did the religious preaching of the dominant church lead the nation toward toleration. According to Voltaire, the Anglican clergy worked "up in their flocks as much holy zeal against nonconformists as possible." Yet, in recent decades, the "fury of the sects" "went no further than sometimes breaking the windows of heretical chapels."(22)
What, then, accounted for the extreme religious toleration in the streets of London as compared to those of Paris?
In Letter Six, On The Presbyterians Voltaire ascribed the "peace" in which "they lived happily together" to a mechanism that was a pure expression of the free market -- the London stock exchange. In the most famous passage from Philosophical Letters, Voltaire observed, "Go into the Exchange in London, that place more venerable than many a court, and you will see representatives of all the nations assembled there for the profit of mankind. There the Jew, the Mahometan, and the Christian deal with one another as if they were of the same religion, and reserve the name of infidel for those who go bankrupt."(26)
Legally and historically, England was not a bastion of religious toleration: laws against nonconformists and atheists were still in force. Yet in England, and not in France, there was an air of toleration on the street level which existed quite apart from what the law said. Moreover, even though both countries had aristocracies, England was not burdened with the unyielding class structure that crippled social and economic mobility in France. As Voltaire wrote in Letter Nine, On the Government, "You hear no talk in this country [England] of high, middle, and low justice, nor of the right of hunting over the property of a citizen who himself has not the liberty of firing a shot in his own field."(37)
A key to the difference between England and France lay in the English system of commerce and in the comparatively high regard in which the English held their merchants.(4) In France, aristocrats and the other elites of society regarded those in commerce, or in trade, with unalloyed contempt. In Letter Ten, On Commerce, Voltaire pointedly commented upon the French attitude, "The merchant himself so often hears his profession spoken of disdainfully that he is fool enough to blush."(40) Yet, in England, the "merchant justly proud" compares himself "not without some reason, to a Roman citizen." Indeed, the younger sons of nobility often entered commerce or took up a profession. This difference in attitude was a large factor in explaining the extraordinary rise of the English middle class, their wealth deriving from trading endeavors. Indeed, the French often derided England as a nation of shop keepers. Voltaire thought this was a compliment, observing that if the English were able to sell themselves, it proved that they were are worth something.(5)
Commerce, or shop keeping, established an arena within which people dealt with each other solely for economic benefit and, so, ignored extraneous factors such as the other party's religious practices. On the floor of the London stock exchange, religious differences disappeared into background noise as people scrambled to make a profit from each other. The economic self-interest of the Christian and the Jew outweighed the prejudice that might otherwise sour personal relations between them. They intersected and co-operated on a point of common interest: "the Presbyterian trusts the Anabaptist, and the Church of England man accepts the promise of the Quaker."(On the Presbyterians 26)
Ironically, Voltaire singled out for praise precisely the same aspect of commerce -- the London stock exchange -- that the later theorist Karl Marx condemned. Both viewed the market place as impersonal or, in more negative Marxist terms, a dehumanizing factor. In the market place, people often to be individuals who were expressing their humanity and became interchangeable units who bought and sold. To Voltaire, the impersonal nature of trade was a good thing. It allowed people to disregard the divisive human factors that had historically disrupted society, such as differences of religion and class. The very fact that a Christian who wished to profit from a Jew, and vice versa, had to disregard the personal characteristics of the other party and deal with him on a basis of some civility was what recommended the London stock exchange to Voltaire.
In this, Voltaire's voice is reminiscent of the political philosopher Adam Smith in his most popular work Wealth of Nations. Smith outlined how everyone in a civilized market society was dependent upon the cooperation of multitudes even though the people he chose as friends might not number more than a dozen or so. A market place required the participation of throngs of people, most of whom are never directly encountered. Under such anonymous circumstances, it would be folly for any man to expect multitudes of strangers to benefit him out of sheer benevolence or because they personally liked him. The cooperation of the butcher or the brewer was ensured by their simple self-interest. Thus, those who entered the market place did not need the approval or favor of those with whom they dealt. They needed only to pay their bills.
The toleration created by the London Stock Exchange extended far beyond the doors of that institution. After conducting business with each other, the Christian and the Jew went their separate ways. As Voltaire phrased it, "On leaving these peaceable and free assemblies, some go to the synagogue, others in search of a drink..." In the end, "all are satisfied."(26)
The Philosophical Letters -- Voltaire's tribute to the English middle class, their commerce and their society -- created an enormous impact on the European intellectual scene. Calling the Letters "a declaration of war and a map of campaign", the contemporary philosopher Will Durant commented:
"Rousseau said of these letters that they played a large part in the awakening of his mind; there must have been thousands of young Frenchmen who owed the book a similar debt. Lafayette said it made him a republican at the age of nine. Heine thought 'it was not necessary for the censor to condemn this book; it would have been read without that'".(6)
Nevertheless, French censors seemed eager to condemn the Philosophical Letters. The printer was imprisoned in the Bastille. A lettre de cachet for the elusive Voltaire's immediate arrest was issued. By an order of Parliament, all known copies of the work were confiscated and burned in front of the Palais de Justice. Through the intercession of powerful friends, the lettre de cachet against Voltaire was withdrawn, again on the promise that he remain safely outside the limits of Paris. In this manner did the French church and state respond to Voltaire's salute to toleration.
But the themes of the Philosophical Letters resounded deeply within the consciousness of Europe for many decades to come. One of its themes was that freedom -- especially freedom of commerce -- was the true wellspring of religious toleration and of a peaceful civil society. The insight was nothing short of revolutionary because it reversed the traditionally accepted argument and policies on how to create a harmonious society. Traditionally, France (along with most other European nations) had attempted to enforce a homogeneous system of values upon its people in the belief that common values were necessary to ensure peace and harmony. Common values were seen to be the social glue that held together the social fabric. This was particularly true of religious values.
This was not a moral argument, but a practical one: society would collapse into open violence without the cohesion provided by common values. Thus, those in authority needed to centrally plan and rigorously enforce the values that should be taught to and should be practiced by the common people. After all, if people were allowed to choose and practice their own religious values, if values became a commodity open to competition, then civil chaos and conflict would inevitably ensue.
Voltaire argued that precisely the opposite was true. The process of imposing homogeneous values led only to conflict and religious wars. The society that resulted from such a process was intellectually stagnant and morally corrupt, because no questions or dissent were permitted. Instead of homogeneity and control, it was diversity and freedom that created a thriving and peaceful society. Voltaire ended his most quoted letter, On the Presbyterians with the observation:
"If there were only one religion in England, there would be danger of tyranny; if there were two, they would cut each other's throats; but there are thirty, and they live happily together in peace."(26)
Perhaps one reason that Voltaire's Philosophical Letters created such a backlash from the leviathan French state was that the logic its arguments, if carried beyond religion, struck a blow at any attempt by government to impose common values or common practices on the people. Indeed, Voltaire's argument against homogeneity continues to have deep implications for the centralized policies of all governments. Those citizens who reject homogeneity in religion are naturally led to question the wisdom of many other government institutions, e.g. public schooling, which are often justified by the declared need for common values. The freedom of individuals to decide for themselves what is valuable could easily lead them to demand the right to live according to those values and to teach them to their children. It could lead to an unraveling of centralized control.
(1) Voltaire is considered so key to the Enlightenment that the much acclaimed series on intellectual history by Will and Ariel Durant, The Story of Civilization, entitled the volume covering this period (vol. IX) "The Age of Voltaire".
(2) The number of letters included varies slightly from edition to edition. In the one used as a source for this article,Philosophical Letters (N.Y.: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1961. Translated by Ernest Dilworth) contains twenty-five.
(3) Among the political barriers for non-Anglicans was the Test Act of 1673 which required the holders of public office to receive the sacrament in the Church of England.
(4) This assertion is not meant to slight the differences between English and French government -- especially the constitutional ones -- upon which Voltaire dwelled. For example, English law recognized the rights of habeas corpus and of a public trial by jury. French law was notorious for lettres de cachet by which those in power could arbitrarily throw enemies into prison to rot indefinitely.
(5) Voltaire undoubtedly phrased himself in such a manner as to irritate the elitist French who had, after all, forced him to leave Paris. For example, Letter Eighteen On Tragedy, began, "The English, as well as the Spaniards, already had a theatre while the French still had nothing but fair-booths."
(6) Will and Ariel Durant in The Story of Civilization: Part IX (The Age of Voltaire) N.Y.: Simon and Schuster, 1965, pg. 370.
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