Voltaire wrote the following on "pre-emptive strikes" and foulness of
"artificial religions":
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"Natural religion has a thousand times prevented citizens from committing
crimes. A well-trained mind has not the inclination for it: a tender one is
alarmed at it, representing to itself a just and avenging God; but artificial
religion encourages all cruelties which are exercised by troops --
conspiracies, seditions, pillages, ambuscades, surprises of towns, robberies,
and murder. Each marches gaily to crime, under the banner of his saint.
"A certain number of orators are everywhere paid to celebrate these murderous
days; some are dressed in a long black close coat, with a short cloak; others
have a shirt above a gown, some wear two variegated stuff streamers over
their shirts. All of them speak for a long time, and quote that which was
done of old in Palestine, as applicable to a combat in Veteravia.
"The rest of the year these people declaim against vices. They prove, in
three points and by antitheses, that ladies who lay a little carmine upon
their cheeks, will be the eternal objects of the eternal vengeances of the
Eternal; that Polyeuctus and Athalia are works of the demon; that a man who,
for two hundred crowns a day, causes his table to be furnished with fresh sea
fish during Lent, infallibly works his salvation; and that a poor man who
eats two sous and a half worth of mutton, will go forever to all the devils.
"Of five or six thousand declamations of this kind, there are three or four
at most, composed by a Gaul named Massillon, which an honest man may read
without disgust: but in all these discourses, you will scarcely find two in
which the orator dares to say a word against the scourge and crime of war,
which contains all other scourges and crimes. The unfortunate orators speak
incessantly against love, which is the only consolation of mankind, and the
only mode of making amends for it; they say nothing of the abominable efforts
which we make to destroy it...
"What becomes of, and what signifies to me, humanity, beneficence, modesty,
temperance, mildness, wisdom, and piety, while half a pound of lead, sent
from the distance of a hundred steps, pierces my body, and I die at twenty
years of age, in inexpressible torments, in the midst of five or- six
thousand dying men, while my eyes which open for the last time, see the town
in which I was born destroyed by fire and sword, and the last sounds which
reach my ears are the cries of women and children expiring under the ruins,
all for the pretended interests of a man whom I know not?
"What is worse, war is an inevitable scourge. If we take notice, all men have
worshipped Mars. Sabaoth, among the Jews, signifies the god of arms; but
Minerva, in Homer, calls Mars a furious, mad, and infernal god.
"The celebrated Montesquieu, who was called humane, has said, however, that
it is just to bear fire and sword against our neighbors, when we fear that
they are doing too well. If this is the spirit of laws, it is also that of
Borgia and of Machiavelli. If unfortunately he says true, we must write
against this truth, though it may be proved by facts.
"This is what Montesquieu says. "Between societies, the right of natural
defence sometimes induces the necessity of attacking, when one people sees
that a longer peace puts another in a situation, to destroy it, and that
attack at the given moment is the only way of preventing this destruction.
"How can attack in peace be the only means of preventing this destruction?
You must be sure that this neighbor will destroy you, if he become powerful.
To be sure of it, he must already have made preparations for your overthrow.
In this case, it is he who commences the war; it is not you: your supposition
is false and contradictory.
"If ever war is evidently unjust, it is that which you propose: it is going
to kill your neighbor, who does not attack you, lest he should ever be in a
state to do so. To hazard the ruin of your country, in the hope of ruining
without reason that of another, is assuredly neither honest nor useful, for
we are never sure or success, as you well know."
--Voltaire, Ch. 24, Philosophical Dictionary
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