风俗论 (1756)

试论各民族的精神与风俗以及自查理曼至路易十三的历史（法语：Essai sur les mœurs et l'esprit des Nations ），简称风俗论，是法国作家、历史学家和哲学家伏尔泰的著作。

伏尔泰写作动机是为沙特莱侯爵夫人学习历史准备一本通俗教材。1739年，部分初稿完成，1740年代在《法兰西信使报》上陆续刊出。沙特莱侯爵夫人死后，伏尔泰不再打算继续写下去。后来有人以《通史概要》为题盗印了伏尔泰的手稿，盗印版本错误百出，还增加了其他人写的一些反王权的段落，这使得伏尔泰非常不满，伏尔泰打算将未完成的著作完稿。1756年，风俗论首次出版。1765年，伏尔泰发表了《历史哲学》，后来《历史哲学》成为《风俗论》的导论。伏尔泰在去世之前一直在完善该著作。

该著作共有197章。伏尔泰在该著作中主要探讨前查理曼时期至路易十四时期的欧洲历史，并且提到了非西方民族。伏尔泰认为世界的历史起于东方，他还在书中赞美了英国的君主立宪制、荷兰以及瑞士的公民自由权，并且对中国赞赏有加，对东方文明褒多于贬。同时伏尔泰还批判了教宗。

目录

第一章-第四章：介绍古代中国和印度的风俗

第五章-第七章：穆罕默德

第八章-第九章：基督教和罗马教会的成立

第十章-第十二章：基督教成为罗马帝国的国教以及罗马帝国的衰落

第十章-第十三章：教宗权力来源

第一九五章：17世纪和18世纪初的中国

第一九六章：17世纪日本的风俗

第一九七章：路易十四之前的历史概述

Essai sur les mœurs et l'esprit des nations (translated to English as "An Essay on Universal History, the Manners, and Spirit of Nations") is a work by the French writer, historian, and philosopher Voltaire, published for the first time in 1756. It discusses the history of Europe before Charlemagne until the dawn of the age of Louis XIV, also addressing the colonies and the East.

The 197-chapter work resulted from fifteen years of research by Voltaire at Cirey, Brussels, Paris, Lunéville, Prussia, Alsace and Geneva.

Voltaire revised the text until his death in 1778, expanding an Appendix with defence of the work and responses to criticism.

Content

The Essai is a work of Enlightenment philosophy as much as of history. It urges the active rejection of superstition and fable, and the need to replace them with knowledge based on reason. Voltaire traced common themes across various human cultures and languages, explained by a shared reality but also by shared human failings, such as superstitions and dreams, that kept humans from appreciating this reality.

Voltaire was reacting against Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet's Discourse on Universal History, which had presented Judeo-Christian nations as the most advanced. In contrast, the Essai praised ancient China and India. Voltaire also attempted to refute prejudices about the Muslim world, according to which the Ottoman Empire and all other Muslim states were despotisms in which individuals had no rights and no property of their own. He countered that these states differed among each other, just as Christian states did. He also argued that none of them were treating their subjects as slaves. He pointed out that European feudalism gave individuals no more rights than a typical person in Turkey or Prussia.

While arguing that Christianity was not essential for a civilised and highly moral society, Voltaire countered writers, including Pierre Bayle, who had used China as an example of a morally advanced culture based on atheism. Pointing to Chinese classic literature, including Confucius, Voltaire wrote that all societies, China included, had recognised a supreme being. They consequently used ideas of this being as a basis for their morality.

Voltaire credited his intellectual partner Émilie du Châtelet as an influence: She had criticised works of history that were dull lists of facts. The Essai was written to show that history could be readable and engaging so as to "enlighten the soul" rather than weigh it down.

Reception

The Jesuit preacher Claude-Adrien Nonnotte spent much of his life opposing the view on Christianity that Voltaire had taken in the Essai. At first, he anonymously published Examen critique ou Réfutation du livre des moeurs ("Critical examination or refutation of the book of customs"). Over the next twenty years, he wrote a succession of revised editions of this work, which was translated into Italian, German, Polish, and Portuguese. Voltaire, in turn, responded with criticisms of Nonnotte in revised editions of the Essai and in his Eclaircissements historiques ("Historical clarifications").

The critic Paul Sakmann praised the Essai as "large-scale, critically-sifted, and treated in a philosophical spirit". Siófra Pierse in 2013 wrote that it is "a magisterial work of compression, summary, synthesis and selectivity." Saul Anton in 2012 described it as "a masterpiece of prose that pioneered many of the foundations of modern historical study and a style of historical discourse that placed the reader’s experience at the center."

Published editions

"Essai sur les mœurs et l’esprit des nations", Critical edition, in Œuvres complètes de Voltaire, (Voltaire Foundation, Oxford) Volumes: 22 ISBN 978-0-7294-0874-5, 23 ISBN 978-0-7294-0946-9, 24 ISBN 978-0-7294-0974-2, 25 ISBN 978-0-7294-0975-9, 26A ISBN 978-0-7294-0976-6, 26B ISBN 978-0-7294-0977-3, 26C ISBN 978-0-7294-1145-5