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will not say it was with the consent and assistance of the archbishop of Milan, Charles Borome, who was made a saint. Some passionate writers have averred this fact, which I am very far from believing; but I say, there is scarce any city or borough in Europe, where blood has not been spilt for religious quarrels; I say, that the human species has been perceptibly diminished, because women and girls were massacred as well as men; I say, that Europe would have had a third larger population, if there had been no theological disputes. In fine, I say, that so far from forgetting these abominable times, we should frequently take a view of them, to inspire an eternal horror for them; and that it is for our age to make reparation by toleration, for this long collection of crimes, which has taken place through the want of toleration, during sixteen barbarous centuries.

Let it not then be said,that there are no traces left of that shocking fanaticism, of the want of toleration; they are still everywhere to be met with, even in those countries that are esteemed the most humane. The Lutheran and Calvinist preachers, were they masters, would, perhaps, be as little inclined to pity, as obdu-rate, as insolent as they upbraid their antagonists with being.

Voltaire, Candide

At last he [Candide] approached a man who had just been addressing a big audience for a whole hour on the subject of charity. The orator peered at him and said:”

What is your business here? Do you support the Good Old Cause?”

”There is not effect without a cause,” replied Candide modestly. “All things are necessarily connected and arranged for the best. It was my fate to be driven from Lady Cunégonde’s presence and made to run the gantlet, and now I have to beg my bread until I can earn it. Things should not have happened otherwise.”

“Do you believe that the Pope is Antichrist, my friend?” said the minister.

“I have never heard anyone say so,” replied Candide; “but whether he is or he isn’t, I want some food.”

”You don’t deserve to eat,” said the other. “Be off with you, you villain, you wretch! Don’t come near me again or you’ll suffer for it.”

The minister’s wife looked out of the window at that moment, and seeing a man who was not sure that the Pope was Antichrist, emptied over his head a chamber pot, which shows to what lengths ladies are driven by religious zeal.

Compare the two approaches that Voltaire uses to address the problem of religious intolerance. Do you think one is more effective? Why?

* * *

Diderot’s most famous contribution to the Enlightenment was the twenty-eight-volume Encyclopedia, or Classified Dictionary of the Sciences, Arts, and Trades, that he edited and called the “great work of his life.” Its purpose, according to Diderot, was to “change the general way of thinking.” It did precisely that in becoming a major weapon of the philosophes’ crusade against the old French society. The contributors included many philosophes who expressed their major concerns. They attacked religious superstition and advocated toleration as well as a program for social, legal, and political improvements that would lead to a society that was more cosmopolitan, more tolerant, more humane, and more reasonable. In later editions, the price of the Encyclopedia was drastically reduced, dramatically increasing its sales and making it available to doctors, clergy, teachers, lawyers, and even military officers. The ideas of the Enlightenment were spread even further as a result.

THE NEW “SCIENCE OF MAN” The Enlightenment belief that Newton’s scientific methods could be used to discover the natural laws underlying all areas of human life led to the emergence in the eighteenth century of what the philosophes called the “science of man,” or what we would call the social sciences. In a number of areas, philosophes arrived at natural laws that they believed governed human actions. If these “natural laws” seem less than universal to us, it reminds us how much the philosophes were people of their times reacting to the conditions they faced. Nevertheless, their