"Never," says Voltaire, in his "English Letters," "will our
philosophers make a religious sect, for they are without enthusiasm."
This was a favorite idea with the disciples of the great cynic, but the
event has disproved its truth. The Philosophers in Voltaire's lifetime
formed a sect, although it could hardly be called a religious one. The
Patriarch of Ferney himself was something not unlike its pontiff.
Diderot and d'Alembert were its bishops, with their attendant clergy of
Encyclopaedists. Helvetius and Holbach were its doctors of atheology.
Most reading and thinking Frenchmen were for a time its members.
Rousseau was its arch-heretic. The doctrines were materialism, fatalism,
and hedonism. The sect still exists. It has adhered, from the time of
its formation, to a curious notion, its favorite superstition, which may
be expressed somewhat as follows: "Human reason and good sense were
first invented from thirty to fifty years ago." "When we consider," says
Voltaire, "that Newton, Locke, Clarke and Leibnitz, would have been
persecuted in France, imprisoned at Rome, burnt at Lisbon, what must we
think of human reason? It was born in England within this century."
[Footnote: Voltaire (Geneva ed. 1771) xv. 99 (Newton). Also (Beuchot's
ed.) xv. 351 (Essai sur les Moeurs) and passim. The date usually set by
Voltaire's modern followers is that of the publication of the Origin of
Species; although no error is more opposed than this one to the great
theory of evolution.] And similar expressions are frequent in his
writings. The sectaries, from that day to this, have never been wanting
in the most glowing enthusiasm. In this respect they generally surpass
the Catholics; in fanaticism (or the quality of being cocksure) the
Protestants. They hold toleration as one of their chief tenets, but
never undertake to conceal their contempt for any one who disagrees with
them. The sect has always contained many useful and excellent persons,
and some of the most dogmatic of mankind.