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To those last twenty years of his life belong the anti-Christian works reproduced in this volume. He was now a man of mature judgment, vast erudition, and grave humanitarian purpose. The common notion in England of Voltaire’s works, as superficial gibes thrown out by the way in a brilliant career, is sheer nonsense. His command of history was remarkable; and he had, for the time, a thorough grasp of science and philosophy. His arguments for the existence of God will compare with those of the ablest lay or clerical theologians of his time. His knowledge was defective and inaccurate because all knowledge was defective and inaccurate in the eighteenth century, when research was only just beginning to recover from its long ecclesiastical paralysis. No man in France had a larger command of such knowledge as the time afforded, and the use he made of it was serious and high-purposed. It is only the superficial who cannot see the depth below that sparkling surface; only the insensible who cannot feel the strong, steady beat of a human heart behind the rippling laughter.