But the disapproval of authority did not check the circulation or influence of the Thoughts.
They were translated into German and Italian, and were honoured by a shower of hostile criticism.

In France they were often reprinted, and even in our own day they are said not wholly to have lost their vogue as a short manual of scepticism.[27] The historians of literature too often write as if a book were the cause or the controlling force of controversies in which it is really only a symbol, or a proclamation of feelings already in men's minds.

We should never occupy ourselves in tracing the thread of a set of opinions, without trying to recognise the movement of living men and concrete circumstance that accompanied and caused the progress of thought.

In watching how the beacon-fire flamed from height to height-- [Greek: phaos de telepompon ouk enaineto phroura, prosaithrizousa pompimonphloga--] we should not forget that its source and reference lie in action, in the motion and stirring of confused hosts and multitudes of men.

A book, after all, is only the mouthpiece of its author, and the author being human is moved and drawn by the events that occur under his eye.