Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from Men and Women of the Eighteenth Century, Vol. 1
AN ancient sage has represented human reason under the form of an adventuress in rags resting in the evening upon ruins. Can we not thus represent the Philosophy of the eighteenth century? She has penetrated the tem ple - she has there inscribed her name; but the temple 18 naught but a majestic ruin. In the eighteenth cen tury, wit destroyed the heart, reason destroyed poetry. After the reign of Pascal, who sought God in a future life, is the reign of Voltaire, who, forgetting God, stud ed only human life. The heart beat no more; wit de voured all. The seventeenth century was the slave of heaven; the eighteenth century proclaimed itself free, and broke the golden chains which joined heaven to earth. Enslaved, it had the voluptuousness of endurance: free, it stretched its arms, and found but vacuity. Pascal saw the abyss under his feet, but he also saw heaven beyond the. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
