Voltaire and the Royal Society of London

Abstract

In the twenty-fourth and last of his Letters Concerning the English Nation, first published in English translation in 1733, Voltaire turns from the theatre and “The Regard that ought to be shown to Men of Letters” to the topic of academies. Here he makes special reference to the Royal Society of London, and in the latter part of the chapter to the functions performed by the three most important French bodies, the Acaémie Française, the Académie des Sciences, and the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres. Thre reader of the mercurial Voltaire has learned not to expect a formal conclusion in his works; there is neither conclusion drawn from the receding chapter, nor résumé of the book's contents. The tempting possiblilites of a witty analysis of the English character or of a sage prediction of the ultimate result of the process of mutual accommodation then visible in the ranks of the leisured class of each country, do not tempt Voltaire to that perilous literary sport, skating on the thin ice of generalizations over the uncertain waters of national differences.