53. Three aphorisms from Alexandre Deleyre (1726-1797), ‘Fanaticism’, from the Encyclopédie; Olaudah Equiano (1745-1797), The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African, 1789; and Voltaire, Letter to Jean Le Rond d’Alembert, 9 November 176484
Frontispiece of The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Olaudah_Equiano_-_The_interesting_Narrative_of_the_Life_of_Olaudah_Equiano_(1789),_frontispiece_-_BL.jpg
What is fanaticism, then? It is the result of a misled and misleading vision of the world and it takes advantage of those things which are sacred, subjugating religion to the whims of imagination and the excesses of passion.
Deleyre
But is not the slave trade entirely a war with the heart of man? And surely that which is begun by breaking down the barriers of virtue involves in its continuance destruction to every principle, and buries all sentiments in ruin!
Olaudah Equiano
Philosophers are the doctors of the souls that the fanatics are poisoning.
Voltaire
Read the entry for ‘Fanaticism’ on the ARTFL Encyclopédie Project (text): http://artflsrv02.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/philologic/getobject.pl?c.5:530.encyclopedie0513
Read the entry for ‘Fanaticism’ on the ARTFL Encyclopédie Project (facsimile): http://artflsrv02.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/extras/encpageturn.pl?V6/ENC_6-393.jpeg
Read the free original text online of The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African, 1789 edition: https://history.hanover.edu/texts/Equiano/equiano_ch5_a.html
Read the free original text online (facsimile) of Voltaire’s Letter to Jean Le Rond d’Alembert in Œuvres completes, 1784 edition: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=yjs-AAAAYAAJ&pg=PA329
84 Alexandre Deleyre, ‘Fanatisme’, in the Encyclopédie, ou dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers, 1751-1772; Olaudah Equiano, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African, London: 1789, I; Voltaire, ‘Lettre à Jean Le Rond d’Alembert’, in his Œuvres complètes de Voltaire, edited by Beaumarchais, Paris: de l’imprimerie de la société littéraire typographique, 1784, LXVIII, p. 329.
