“Every sensible man, every honorable man,” Voltaire wrote, “must hold the Christian sect in horror.” The common people did not share that horror, and thus were neither sensible nor honorable. Diderot, the guiding light of the Encyclopédie, in the article celebrating the new “philosophical age,” was candid in excluding the common man from this enterprise: “The great mass of men,” he wrote, “are not so made that they can either promote or understand this forward march of the human spirit.” In another article, he was much harsher: “Distrust the judgment of the multitude in matters of reasoning and philosophy; its voice is that of wickedness, stupidity, inhumanity, unreason, and prejudice…. The multitude is ignorant and stupefied…. Distrust it in matters of morality; it is not capable of strong and generous actions…; heroism is practically folly in its eyes.” Again, writing to Voltaire: The poor are “too idiotic--bestial--too miserable and too busy [to enlighten themselves].” Voltaire responded in kind, with a typically Voltairean proviso. Religion, he replied, “must be destroyed among respectable people and left to the canaille [the rabble] ..., for whom it was made.” This was the point of his famous witticism: “I want my lawyer, my tailor, my servants, even my wife to believe in God, because it means that I shall be cheated and robbed and cuckolded less often…. If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him.”
"Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities." - Voltaire... France's "celebrated" Author and Philosopher.
Thanks for the article. This is really an interesting exploration of the foundations of what we see in these three cultures today. It's not very surprising to see how Voltaire's thinking eventually lead to what we sees as the depraved and corrupt actions of the people of France today.