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In this Little Blue Book Number 512, Will Durant describes François-Marie Arouet, the writer, historian, and philosopher known as Voltaire (1694-1778) as "unprepossessing, ugly, vain, flippant, unscrupulous, even at times dishonest" and "tirelessly kind, considerate, ...as sedulous in helping friends as in crushing enemies." "My trade is to say what I think," wrote Voltaire, and he did so in ninety-nine "sparkling and fruitful" volumes. He advocated for freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and for the separation of church and state. In 1791, when his ashes were carried through Paris to be re-entombed in the Panthéon, 100,000 men and women joined the procession, while 600,000 flanked the streets. Written on his funeral car were the words: "He gave the human mind a great impetus; he prepared us for freedom." (Pamela Nagami, M.D.)

This little Blue Book No. 39, by Will Durant, deals with Aristotle (384-322 B.C.E.), a Macedonian pupil of Plato, who became the teacher of Prince Alexander. While his pupil went off to conquer the world, Aristotle returned to Athens and founded his school, the Lyceum. There he amassed the first great collection of plants and animals and laid the foundations of biology, logic, literary theory, ethics, and political science. Departing from abstract Platonic universals, Aristotle described such natural processes as the developing embryo of the chick. He saw the universe as matter in motion with God as its first impulsive force. Aristotle was skeptical of Utopias. Social evils do not "arise out of the possession of private property," he wrote, but "from quite another source--the wickedness of human nature." At the theater he said we enjoy tragedies which elicit pity and terror, but in everyday life Aristotle counseled balance, reason, dignity and the golden mean in all things. (Pamela Nagami, M.D.)

Overview and analysis of the lives and works of select philosophers from ancient Greece to the early 20th century, written in a lively and educational style intended for a general audience. (Summary by Kazbek)