OF ZALEUCUS
BY VOLTAIRE
Every moralist and legislator may be challenged
to produce anything more beautiful and useful
than the exordium of the laws of Zaleucus, who
lived before the time of Pythagoras, and was
the first magistrate of the Locrians.
"Every citizen should be persuaded of the
existence of the divinity. It is only necessary
to observe the order and harmony of the universe,
to be convinced that accident could not have
formed it. We should subdue the soul, purify
it, and cleanse it from all evil, from a
conviction that God cannot be well served by
those of a perverse disposition; and that he
does not resemble those wretched mortals, who
suffer themselves to be influenced by magnificent
ceremonies and sumptuous offerings. Virtue alone,
and a constant desire to do good, can please him.
Let us then endeavor to be just in our principles
and practice, and we shall thereby become dear
to the divinity. Every one should dread more what
leads to ignominy, than what leads to poverty.
He should be looked upon as the best citizen,
who gives up his fortune for justice; but those
whose violent passions lead them to evil, men,
women, citizens and strangers, should be cautioned
to remember the gods, and to think of the severe
judgments which they exercise against the wicked;
let them call to remembrance the hour of death --
the fatal hour which awaits us all -- the hour
when the remembrance of faults brings on remorse,
and the vain regret of not having regulated all
our actions by the rules of equity.
"Every one should so conduct himself during each
moment of his life, as if that moment were his
last; but if an evil genius prompts him to crimes,
let him fly to the foot of the altar, and implore
heaven to drive from him this evil genius; let
him, above all, seek the society of just and
virtuous men, whose counsels will bring him back
to virtue, by representing to him God's goodness
and his vengeance."
No; there is nothing in all antiquity that should
obtain a preference to this simple but sublime
moral, dictated by reason and virtue, stripped
of all enthusiasm, and of that extravagant
coloring, which good sense disowns.
Charondas, a disciple of Zaleucus, expressed
himself in the same manner. The Platos, Ciceros,
and divine Antonines, have never since held any
other language. Thus did Julian, who had the
misfortune to give up the Christian religion,
but who did so much honor to that of nature,
also express himself; that Julian, who was the
scandal of our church, and the glory of the
Roman Empire.
"The ignorant," says he, "should be instructed
and not punished; they should be pitied, and
not hated. The duty of an Emperor is to imitate
God; to imitate him, is to have the fewest
wants, and to do all the good that is possible."
Let those who insult antiquity, learn to be
acquainted with it; let them not confound wise
legislators with fabulists; let them learn how
to distinguish between the laws of the wisest
magistrates, and the ridiculous customs of the
people; let them not say that superstitious
ceremonies were invented by intelligent rulers,
and that they originated false oracles and
false prodigies without number, and therefore
all the magistrates of Greece and Rome, who
tolerated these absurdities, were blind deceivers
and deceived. This would be like saying that
there are bonzes in China, who have abused the
populace, and that therefore the wise Confucius
was a wretched impostor.
Men should, in so enlightened an age as this,
blush at those declamations, which ignorance
has so often promulgated against sages, who
should be imitated and not calumniated. Do we
not know that in every country the vulgar are
imbecile, superstitious, and insensible? Are
there not Methodists, Millinarians, Moravians,
and fanatics of every kind, in that country
which gave birth to the chancellor Bacon, to
those immortal geniuses Newton and Locke, and
to a multitude of great men?
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