His drama, Saul (1763), which the police tried to suppress, presents the career of David, the man after Gods own heart, in all its naked horror. The scene in which Samuel reproves Saul for not having slain Agag will give an idea of the spirit of the piece. SAMUEL: God commands me to tell you that he repents of having made you king. SAUL: God repents! Only they who commit errors repent. His eternal wisdom cannot be unwise. God cannot commit errors. SAMUEL: He can repent of having set on the throne those who do. SAUL: Well, who does not? Tell me, what is my fault? SAMUEL: You have pardoned a king. AGAG: What! Is the fairest of virtues considered a crime in Judea? SAMUEL (to Agag): Silence! do not blaspheme. (To Saul). Saul, formerly king of the Jews, did not God command you by my mouth to destroy all the Amalekites, without sparing women, or maidens, or children at the breast? AGAG: Your godgave such a command! You are mistaken, you meant to say, your devil. SAMUEL: Saul, did you obey God? SAUL: I did not suppose such a command
[156] was positive. I thought that goodness was the first attribute of the Supreme Being, and that a compassionate heart could not displease him. SAMUEL: You are mistaken, unbeliever. God reproves you, your sceptre will pass into other hands.
Perhaps no writer has ever roused more hatred in Christendom than Voltaire. He was looked on as a sort of anti-Christ. That was natural; his attacks were so tremendously effective at the time. But he has been sometimes decried on the ground that he only demolished and made no effort to build up where he had pulled down. This is a narrow complaint. It might be replied that when a sewer is spreading plague in a town, we cannot wait to remove it till we have a new system of drains, and it may fairly be said that religion as practised in contemporary France was a poisonous sewer. But the true answer is that knowledge, and therefore civilization, are advanced by criticism and negation, as well as by construction and positive discovery. When a man has the talent to attack with effect falsehood, prejudice, and imposture, it is his duty, if there are any social duties, to use it.
For constructive thinking we must go to the other great leader of French thought,