dailyTangents.com
Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary
1764
CONTENTS ... Index
* Preface
* Adultery
* Advocate
* Ancients and Moderns
* Animals
* Antiquity
* Arts
* Astrology
* Atheism
* Authority
* Authors
* Banishment
* Bankruptcy
* Beauty
* Bishop
* Books
* Bouleverd
* Bourges
* Brahmins
* Character
* Charlatan
* Civil Laws
* Climate
* Common Sense
* Concatenation of Events
* Contradictions
* Corn
* Cromwell
* Customs
* Democracy
* Destiny
* Devout
* Ecclesiastical Ministry
* Emblem
* English Theatre, on the
* Envy
* Equality
* Expiation
* Extreme
* Ezourveidam
* Faith
* False Minds
* Fatherland
* Final Causes
* Fraud
* Free-will
* French
* Friendship
* God
* Helvetia
* History
* Ignorance
* Impious
* Joan of Arc
* Kissing
* Languages
* Laws
* Liberty
* Library
* Limits of the Human Mind
* Local Crimes
* Love
* Luxury
* Man
* Man in the Iron Mask
* Marriage
* Master
* Men of Letters
* Metamorphosis
* Milton, on the Reproach of Plagiarism Against
* Mohammedans
* Mountain
* Nakedness
* Natural Law
* Nature
* Necessary
* New Novelties
* Philosopher
* Power, Omnipotence
* Prayers
* Précis of Ancient Philosophy
* Prejudices
* Rare
* Reason
* Religion
* Sect
* Self-esteem
* Soul
* States, Governments
* Superstition
* Tears
* Theist
* Tolerance
* Truth
* Tyranny
* Virtue
* Why?
* Declaration of Admirers, Questioners and Doubters
... LINKS & RESOURCES
MOUNTAIN
It is a very old, very universal fable that tells of the mountain which,
having frightened all the countryside by its outcry that it was in
labour, was hissed by all present when it brought into the world a mere
mouse. The people in the pit were not philosophers. Those who hissed
should have admired. It was as fine for the mountain to give birth to a
mouse, as for the mouse to give birth to a mountain. A rock which
produces a rat is a very prodigious thing; and never has the world seen
anything approaching this miracle. All the globes of the universe could
not call a fly into existence. Where the vulgar laugh, the philosopher
admires; and he laughs where the vulgar open their big, stupid eyes in
astonishment.
