BIB_ID
265704
Accession number
MA 6419
Creator
Voltaire, 1694-1778.
Display Date
1738 Nov. 17.
Credit line
Purchased for The Dannie and Hettie Heineman Collection as the gift of the Heineman Foundation, 2006.
Description
1 item (3 p.) ; 22.4 cm
Notes
Written from Cirey, where Voltaire was living with Emilie du Châtelet.
Summary
A letter to his former teacher from the College of Jesuits, Paris, sending his paper "Elements de la philosophie de Newton," paying homage to Porée and the Jesuits, saying "it is you who taught me to think. The kind of eloquence which you practise, being only the ornament of truth, leads naturally to philosophy"; discussing scientific theory ("It is true that Newton's philosophy seems quite strange, but the vortices of Descartes were even more so, and they had the additional misfortune of being based neither on geometry nor on experiment which are the two sole sources of physical truth."
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