In Praise of Reason: A New Reader's Edition

Voltaire

May 2024 · The Collected Works of Voltaire Book 15 · Märchenhaus Verlag

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Cast in the form of an academic address "pronounced in a provincial academy" by a fictional Monsieur de Chambon, this work reads like a prize giving speech where the awardee is none other than Reason personified. Voltaire wrote it in 1774 during a moment of optimism: the death of the long reigning Louis XV and the ascension of a new monarch had intellectuals hoping for enlightened reforms. Rather than directly lampooning the old regime or the Church as he often did, Voltaire here adopts a positive, laudatory tone, a tactical inversion of his usual approach. The text takes the reader on a brisk tour of human history, showing moments when reason illuminated the darkness. In a quasi ceremonial style, Voltaire's narrator praises the ancient philosophers who questioned myth, the scientists like Galileo and Newton who expanded humanity's understanding, and the thinkers of Voltaire's own era who challenged fanaticism. The speech is "historical" in that it charts reason's progress from antiquity to modern times, but it's also a manifesto in disguise: each historical vignette shows the standards Voltaire holds dear (tolerance, empirical inquiry, human betterment) and implicitly critiques their opposites (bigotry, superstition, tyranny).

Alongside In Praise of Reason, the volume provides an afterword tracing Voltaire's intellectual relationships with Enlightenment thinkers and philosophers (including Locke, Diderot, Rousseau and Newton), containing research into his influences and economic attachments, a complete timeline of his life and works, a glossary of Enlightenment terminology, and a detailed index of all of Voltaire's writings. This edition translates In Praise of Reason into modern English while retaining the directness and momentum of Voltaire's satirical prose. The supporting material places In Praise of Reason within Voltaire's broader artistic and philosophical legacy and its later theological reception.

The writing is effusive and ornate, mimicking the high flown rhetoric of official eulogies, except the usual subject of praise (a recently deceased dignitary) is replaced with an abstraction. This clever twist allowed Voltaire to laud Enlightenment ideals under the pretext of a harmless compliment to an idea. At times, the Éloge carries a playful irony, as when "M. de Chambon" solemnly credits Reason for miracles far more impressive than any found in scripture. Yet for all the light touch, the sentiment is sincere: Voltaire truly is paying tribute to the power of critical thought to improve the human condition.

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About the author

Voltaire (1694 to 1778), born François Marie Arouet, was a French writer, historian, dramatist, and philosopher. He wrote satire, fiction, history, drama, letters, and essays on religion, law, science, politics, and toleration; his best known fiction includes Candide, Zadig, and Micromégas.

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