VOLTA, ALESSANDRO. — Distinguished physicist, of noble family from Como, born there on 18 Feb. 1745 and died there on 5 Mar. 1827.
To him is owed the discovery of electric current, from which followed the greater part of modern progress in physics, which in turn transformed, and is still transforming, the way of life of much of humanity. For this reason, V. is generally known everywhere as the great discoverer and the first to produce persistent electric currents by means of the battery he invented in 1799.
In the time of V.’s youth, electricity, still rudimentary despite twenty-four centuries of study, was finally being considered more broadly following Guericke’s invention of the first friction machine and its further refinements, which allowed an abundant production and collection of electricity in a dry atmosphere. Yet while attention was almost universally directed toward the consideration and celebration of the most striking electrical phenomena—such as long sparks and their various effects, the shock transmitted through chains of people holding hands, and the like—the young V., barely eighteen years old, reasoned that many electrical phenomena might be explained by laws analogous to Newtonian attraction at very small distances and by contact between different bodies. In 1763 he communicated this thought to the then-famous Abbé Nollet, who praised and encouraged him. It was a line of thought that much later would lead him to the battery.
From that point onward, V. proceeded with the method of observing, listening, comparing, and thinking before speaking, recalling Newton’s maxim that discoveries are made by thinking on. Quietly in his ancestral home, he experimented with the most modest means until 1755—that is, until his thirtieth year—first privately publishing two memoirs, one addressed to Fr. Giovanni Battista Beccaria of the University of Turin and the other to Abbot Spallanzani of the University of Pavia. Finally, he constructed the electrophorus, which he immediately (1775) announced and described to C. Priestley of the Royal Society of London. The discovery of the electrophorus was of the utmost importance, for as Arago said, beneath its extreme simplicity and minimal size, it offers an inexhaustible vein of electric fluid in any state of the atmosphere. It represents the most elementary of the various influence machines, the only ones still in use today, all derived from II. This discovery earned V. Como, a position he held until his call to the University of Pavia in 1778. His scientific activity in these two posts, though often interrupted by long journeys to establish instructive contacts with the leading personalities and scientific institutions of Europe, was remarkable. Suffice it to recall his discovery of marsh gas, his clarification of the concepts of electrical capacity and tension, and his inventions—besides the already mentioned electrophorus—of the electroscope, the condensing electrometer (the first true measuring instrument in the field of electrology), his theory on the laws of fluid expansion, and in particular the uniform expansion of air per degree of temperature. All of these were widely employed everywhere and formed the basis for further research and progress.
Finally, in 1791 the well-known publication by L. Galvani, *De viribus electricitatis in motu musculari commentarius*, drew V.’s attention to the interesting subject. Applying his method of thinking on, within a few months V. discovered the error in Galvani’s theory: it was not a matter of animal electricity but of metallic electricity, not residing in the nerves of animals but caused by the differing nature of the metals placed in contact with one another.
The already illustrious V., now forty-six years old, at last made use of the early scientific ideas of his eighteen-year-old self and began the famous long-standing controversy with Galvani, which, already virtually concluded in V.’s favor, almost inevitably led in 1799 (the year after Galvani’s death) to the invention of the battery, which he modestly claimed to have found along his own path. Indeed, convinced that the tensions (what would now be called potential differences) resided in the contacts of heterogeneous metals, between 1797 and 1799 he sought through repeated experiments a way to multiply the metallic pairs (silver and zinc) and to construct a device that would raise the electrical tension to a high degree. To this end, he thought to interpose between the metallic pairs a moist layer or second-class conductor and observed that the electrical tension increased proportionally with the number of pairs. V. alluded to this when he said: “This is the great step I took at the end of 1799, a step that soon led me to the construction of the new shocking apparatus,” referring to the shocks he felt in his hands and arms when he touched the two ends of his device with both hands.
Only on 20 Mar. 1800 did V. describe, in his famous letter to Sir Joseph Banks, president of the Royal Society of London, the device that produced effects resembling the electric organ of the *Raja torpedo*. V. initially called the device the *artificial electric organ*, then the *electromotive apparatus*, and also the *column apparatus* on account of its form at the time. The name *pile* then prevailed, often with the addition *galvanic*, as used by the French.
Volta’s discovery had an enormous echo everywhere and immediately raised the question “whether the effects of the pile can be explained by the new laws of electricity or whether it is necessary to admit another particular fluid for this purpose.” It was again V. who demonstrated the identity of the two fluids, galvanic and electric. On 7 Sept. 1801 at the Institut de France, in the presence of the First Consul Bonaparte, V. demonstrated and discussed his great discovery.
Recent investigations (Piontelli) have concluded that the path opened and then followed by V. in his experiments, which led him to decipher the intricate field of galvanism and to bring forth his wondrous invention, was not only the only experimental path of the era but regains a singular value in light of modern methodology. Today, after more than a century and a half, it can be asserted that V.’s ideas, framed within the broader field of energetics, form a solid foundation for the modern theory of the battery.
Pensioned at the end of 1804 after thirty years of teaching, V. was successively appointed by Napoleon (King of Italy) a member of the Legion of Honor, senator of the Kingdom, and count of the Kingdom of Italy. After the fall of the Kingdom of Italy, following a brief critical period caused by political upheavals, although appointed by the succeeding Austrian government director of philosophical studies at the University of Pavia, V. retired to private life between Como and his country estate at Camnago, where his remains rest honored in a small temple.
He was an exemplary Catholic: he attended Mass every day, and on feast days he received the Sacraments; he remained faithful throughout his life to the daily recitation of the Rosary. On festive afternoons he often explained the catechism to children in his parish church of S. Donnino in Como. In a written declaration, requested of him to satisfy the wish of a dying unbeliever, one reads among other things:
“I have always held and still hold as the only, true, and infallible religion this Holy Catholic Faith, endlessly thanking the good God for having infused such a faith in me, in which I firmly intend to live and die with the lively hope of attaining eternal life. I recognize it as a gift of God, as a supernatural faith; yet I have not neglected the human means to strengthen myself in it, removing any doubt that might arise to tempt me, studying it attentively in its foundations, tracing through the reading of books both apologetic and opposing, the reasons for and against, so that the most valid arguments emerge, rendering it also credible to natural reason, and such that every soul...”
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**VOLTA ALESSANDRO — VOLTAIRE FRANÇOIS-MARIE**
In April 1726 an anonymous person denounced him to the police for having “openly preached deism” and attacked Christianity. V. was at that moment in the Bastille: having been beaten by the servants of the Chevalier de Rohan, with whom he had exchanged insults at the theatre, he had challenged the latter to a duel; but the nobleman, disdaining to fight with a commoner, had arranged for him to be locked up. He was released after a month, on condition that he would go to England for some time. The three years he spent there were decisive for his intellectual formation: he had the opportunity to become closely acquainted with the country of Locke, Newton, deism, and free thought. Having quickly learned the language, he assimilated the culture, whose knowledge he would make known throughout the rest of Europe. Thanks to good recommendations, he was received favorably by both Tories and Whigs and protected by the Court; he was a guest of Pope and Swift, who strongly influenced his satirical style. His financial position, despite temporary difficulties, already gave him complete independence, having in 1722, upon his father’s death, inherited a not inconsiderable patrimony, which he later increased, so that he could live in a manner befitting the circles he frequented.
Returning to France in 1729, V. collected his English experiences in the *Lettres sur les anglais* (or *Lettres philosophiques*), published in English in 1733 and the following year in French. A decree of the Parliament of Paris ordered the book to be burned and its author sought; this contributed to increasing the fame and circulation of the work, which reached a fifth edition in a year. Later, the addition of a twenty-fifth letter, containing seventy-five not very favorable observations on Pascal’s *Pensées* (completed in 1742), provided a further cause of scandal. Prudently withdrawing from Paris, V. settled at Cirey-sur-Blaise, in the castle of the cultured and lively Marquise du Châtelet, with whom he conducted physics experiments, not very successful, and metaphysical studies. V.’s fame at this time was above all that of a dramatic poet: *Artémire* and *Marianne* had failed, but *Brutus* (1731), *La mort de César* (1735), and especially *Zaire* (1732) and *Alzire* (1736) were successful. Of 1742 is the Parisian scandal over *Mahomet ou le Fanatisme*; followed by *Mérope* (1743), *Sémiramis* (1748), *L’orphelin de la Chine* (1755), *Tancrède* (1760), *Olympie* (1763).
V., meanwhile, had traveled. In 1740 he was at Clèves, with Frederick II, and in 1743 at Berlin, to persuade the King of Prussia to renew the alliance with France; from 1744 to 1750 he was at Versailles. But after 1746, the year in which he was received into the Académie Française, his favor began to decline: V., having sold for 60,000 livres his court position, entered the service of Frederick II. The friendship between the two did not last long; after three years of residence in Berlin, V. left in a fury, not without launching against Maupertuis, president of the Prussian Academy and his enemy at court, the barbs of the *Diatribe du docteur Akakia*. He understood that the most advantageous position for him was the independent one that fame and wealth assured him: he first bought an estate on Lake Geneva, which he named “Les Délices,” then settled in the territory of Fernex (v. would write Ferney), at the foot of the Jura, on the border between France and Switzerland. Here V. administered his estates, received visitors from all over Europe, had his dramas performed, and continued tirelessly in his literary activity, protected by a very thin veil of anonymity or pseudonyms, which hid the author from the eyes of the censors but not from those of the readers. In February 1778, he set out for Paris, invited to the performance of *Irène*; he was triumphantly received there, but died a few months later after an intense and exhausting life. His remains, first secretly buried in the abbey of Scellières in Champagne, in July 1791 were interred in the Panthéon in Paris.
**V. and religion.** — V.’s entire work has its root in a fundamental, positive, and sincere trait of his personality: opposition to fanaticism, which, however, manifests itself in the gravest errors. V. also worked practically in favor of victims or supposed victims of fanaticism, as in the case of Jean Calas, a Calvinist merchant of Toulouse accused of having killed his son to prevent him from converting to Catholicism; V. obtained his rehabilitation by the magistracy after the sentence had been carried out. Episodes of this kind, frequent in V.’s later years, pushed into the background less admirable aspects of his moral character. But above all, V. wished to fight fanaticism with his pen, which, through wit and stylistic perfection, became a formidable weapon. His error was to have too simplistically identified the source of fanaticism with positive religion; and the struggle that should have been waged against the former was directed against the latter, and especially against Christianity.
V. was not without a certain core of religiosity. There is a God, and we are not His work: he says in *Le philosophe ignorant* (ch. 19), which may be considered his spiritual testament. The true philosophers are for him “apostles of divinity”: “A catechist tells children that there is a God, Newton demonstrates it to the wise” (*Dictionnaire*, s.V. Athée). V. also admits a Providence and final causes, though excluding Grace; he speaks of rewards and punishments according to merits (*ibid.*, s.V. Théisme), without it being clear on what foundation, given his doubts about the immortality of the soul. But he does not go further: the dogmas appear to him as a tissue of absurdities. Rejecting the concept of Revelation and, on the other hand, lacking the philosophical capacity to grasp a profound meaning in dogma, V. considers any statement about the Trinity, the dual nature of Christ, transubstantiation, etc., as absolutely devoid of sense; but history shows that, in the name of these dogmas, wars have been fought and human blood has been shed; therefore V. considers it his duty to combat them. Unable to distinguish religion from fanaticism, he could not realize that what drives to violence is something different from religion, even if humanly (in good or bad faith) it may happen to be mixed with II. Moreover, typical of him is the prejudice that it is religion that makes political power intolerant, even when it is clear that political power simply cloaks itself, for its own ends, in religious garb.
Rousseau, *Confessions*, ed. Musset-Pathay, Paris 1823, I, 188 ss.; Condorcet, *Vie de M. de V.*, Paris 1789; Beuchot, *V. et le christianisme*, Paris 1878; Lanson, *V. et l’Encyclopédie*, in *Revue de Paris*, 1902; id., *V. et l’histoire*, in *Revue bleue*, 1903; id., *V. et les idées anglaises*, in *Revue historique*, 1904; id., *V. et l’Encyclopédie*, in *Revue de métaphysique et de morale*, 1905; id., *V. et le voltairianisme*, in *Revue bleue*, 1906; id., *V. et les lettres anglaises*, in *Revue de Paris*, 1907; id., *V. et la tolérance*, in *Revue bleue*, 1908; id., *V. et la guerre de Sept Ans*, in *Revue historique*, 1909; id., *V. et la Révolution*, in *Revue bleue*, 1910; id., *V. et la religion*, in *Revue de métaphysique et de morale*, 1911; id., *V. et la politique*, in *Revue bleue*, 1912; id., *V. et la société*, in *Revue de Paris*, 1913; id., *V. et la littérature*, in *Revue bleue*, 1914; id., *V. et la philosophie*, in *Revue de métaphysique et de morale*, 1915; id., *V. et la science*, in *Revue bleue*, 1916; id., *V. et l’art*, in *Revue de Paris*, 1917; id., *V. et la morale*, in *Revue bleue*, 1918; id., *V. et la pédagogie*, in *Revue de métaphysique et de morale*, 1919; id., *V. et l’éducation*, in *Revue bleue*, 1920; id., *V. et la famille*, in *Revue de Paris*, 1921; id., *V. et la femme*, in *Revue bleue*, 1922; id., *V. et l’amour*, in *Revue de métaphysique et de morale*, 1923; id., *V. et la mort*, in *Revue bleue*, 1924.
This explains why, while regarding positive religion as mere fable, he nonetheless preferred to write about it in all his works. Decisive for him on this point, too, was his stay in England, where, amid the flourishing of sects, discussions on religious matters were not confined to a relatively small number of individuals but occupied all educated people, even if their religiosity was superficial. The doctrines and arguments he expounded derive largely from English deists, particularly Bolingbroke, to whom he dedicated the *Examen important de Milord Bolingbroke* (1767); for biblical criticism, he drew on Bayle, Spinoza, Levesque de Burigny, Fréret, and others. What V. contributed of his own was merely the agility and satirical tone of his exposition. Besides the aforementioned *Examen*, other works to be noted include *Le Tombeau du Fanatisme* (1767), *La défense de mon oncle* (1769), *La Bible enfin expliquée* (1776), *Un chrétien contre six Juifs* (1777), and the articles in the *Dictionnaire*, among others. Many of these writings follow the same pattern: they begin with a biblical narrative, which V. never tires of ridiculing by quoting passages and episodes torn from their context so as to highlight only the human aspect, presented now in a grotesque, now in a cruel light. Contradictions, difficulties of dating, and so forth—points which V., following his sources, emphasized—were then calculated to make an impression. His irreverence softens when it comes to the figure of Jesus; yet Jesus is for him no more than a Jew of upright intentions and a more open mind than the common run, who gathers the humble about him and does not conceal his antipathy toward the priests of his time—who, in turn, slander and put him to death. Jesus is a kind of rustic Socrates (*Oeuvres*, ed. Moland [cf. *bibl.*], XXVI, p. 353, and XXVII, p. 69). The spread of Christianity, in V.’s view, has no connection with Jesus’ preaching: dogmas, sacraments, miracles—all are inventions of the leaders of the sects that proliferated in the Roman Empire, one of which, having financed Constantine’s usurpation of the throne, then prevailed through political power. The Church’s rise is explained by V. as the credulity of the many and the bad faith of the few who, for the sake of wealth and power, cultivated that credulity with fables. With these explanations, V. believed he was treating religious history rationally, on a par with secular history.
2.
V. and history
Historical research, in V.’s view, is not an end in itself: it must enlighten minds about the errors and values of the past so as to enable a better organization of present life. His first historical work, still somewhat romanticized, is the *Histoire de Charles XII* (1731), where the adventures of the reckless king of Sweden serve to show the vanity of glory pursued through war and conquest. The *Siècle de Louis XIV* (1751) examines the most splendid period of French history, in which the policy of conquest that sows the seeds of future difficulties is counterbalanced by the flourishing of the sciences, letters, and arts. V. deserves credit, then unusual, for giving a broad place to intellectual activities within the general framework of civilization, relegating political history to the background (*cf. Oeuvres*, ed. cit., XXXIII, p. 566). This is evident in the title of the *Essai sur les moeurs*, begun in 1740 as a continuation of Bossuet’s *Discours sur l’histoire universelle* from Charlemagne to Louis XIV. In the definitive text of 1769, a summary overview of earlier epochs is prefixed under the title *Philosophie de l’histoire* (1765). Other historical works by V. include the *Histoire de Russie* (1759), the *Précis du siècle de Louis XV* (completed in 1768), and the *Histoire du Parlement de Paris* (1769).Though lacking true historical sense, V. was a gifted popularizer, and when his passion did not cloud his judgment, he displayed some critical sense. His conception of history, though still pragmatic (whereby accidental causes are placed on the same level as profound reasons), was superior to that of most of his contemporaries.
3.
V. as philosopher and writer
In philosophy, V. shows no originality; he takes from Bayle, Clarke, Shaftesbury, Newton, and above all Locke the theories that seem to him most reasonable—witness the *Eléments de la philosophie de Newton* (1727), the *Traité de métaphysique* (1734), *Le philosophe ignorant* (1766), and the *Lettres de Memmius à Cicéron* (1771). Yet of great importance for the history of philosophy is the “rationalist” polemic conducted by V. in the religious, historical, and political spheres. The weapon of this polemic is the *Dictionnaire philosophique*, a tool of struggle more agile than the bulky tomes of the *Encyclopédie* and at the same time more explicit and less concerned with censorship. To the *Dictionnaire portatif*, completed in 1764, the Kehl editors (*V. BIBLICA.*) added the *Questions sur l’Encyclopédie*, the articles for Diderot’s same *Encyclopédie*, the *Opinion par alphabét*, and other works (altogether 7 vols.).Philosophical in the contemporary sense are also the *Contes* or thesis novels, to which today much of V.’s literary fame is attached. Many of them follow a consistent pattern: the protagonist’s travels serve V., following the example of Montesquieu’s *Persian Letters*, to satirize contemporary European life, which is typically contrasted with the example of a wise state, sometimes imaginary, sometimes identified with China—a common device at the time. Along these lines are *Zadig, ou la destinée* (1748), which develops the idea that one can never know whether an event will turn out to harm or to benefit, *Candide ou l’optimisme* (1759), which mocks Leibniz’s concept of the “best of all possible worlds,” and *La princesse de Babylone* (1768): the wisdom of Zadig, the candor of Candide, in contact with human malice, become sources of trouble; yet the conclusion is ultimately happy, even in *Candide* (“Il faut cultiver notre jardin”). V.’s storytelling skill is considerable, even if certain motifs are overworked (every ship in *Candide*, for instance, is attacked by pirates, etc.); particularly effective is the satire of military glory. Also noteworthy are *Micromégas* (1752), *L’Ingénu* (1767), and *L’homme aux quarante écus* (1767), the last on an economic theme.
Far less lively today than these tales, pamphlets, and *facéties* are V.’s tragedies, though he was not lacking in theatrical talent. Here, too, the motif that recurs most often is the baleful consequences of fanaticism. His few comedies (*Les originaux*, 1732; *Nanine*, 1749, etc.), of a pathetic tone, always met with scant success.
As for the *Pucelle d’Orléans* (1775), the mock-heroic poem on Joan of Arc that so amused libertines and scandalized the respectable, it now seems simply tedious.
4. V.’s politics and influence. — All of V.’s output has a practical purpose as well. He advocated progressive social reforms without violent upheaval, tailored to specific needs: in France, he desired an enlightened monarchy whose power, though limited, would be free to do good and powerless to do harm, as in England (*cf. Lettres sur les anglais*, ed. cit., VIII, 67); he championed the respect for the twin pillars of “liberty and property”; the Church was to be subordinate to the State, its clergy reduced in number and subject to taxation. Economic development, in V.’s view, depended more on agriculture and the rapid circulation of money than on industry; particularly important was the reorganization of the judicial system.
Several of the reforms advocated by V. were carried out by the Revolution and the Napoleonic Empire, although the Revolution, as such, drew its inspiration far more from the spirit of Rousseau than from that of V. or the Encyclopedists. V.’s work influenced events after his death, especially by undermining the will to resist of the dominant classes, who, sceptical of everything and, in particular, of their own political function, allowed themselves to be swept along by events. With emigration, the aristocracy ceased to be Voltairean, and under the Restoration Voltaireanism became the preserve of the liberal and anticlerical circles of the bourgeoisie. A direct Voltairean influence revived at the end of the century: typical, for example, in Anatole France, and not merely as a man of letters; and if one examines the mentality of anticlerical circles, it is not difficult to detect within it, often unconsciously, a substratum of Voltaireanism.