But Smith, with the same dislike for “zeal,” had too much respect for liberty, too much love of honesty in politics, to adopt Hume’s cynical solution. He would find security in numbers. A State should extend toleration to all; society would naturally divide itself into hundreds of small sects, none of which could be considerable enough to disturb the public tranquillity. The teachers of each sect would be forced to learn a candour and moderation which is seldom to be found among an established clergy; and in this way, by mutual concessions, their doctrine would probably be reduced in time “to that pure and rational religion, free from every mixture of absurdity, imposture, or fanaticism, such as wise men have in all ages of the world wished to see established, but such as positive law has perhaps never yet established in any country.” This plan of ecclesiastical government, he adds, or more properly no ecclesiastical government, was what the Independents, “a sect no doubt of very wild enthusiasts,” proposed to establish in England towards the end of the Civil War. “If it had been established, though of a very unphilosophical origin, it would probably by this time have been productive of the most philosophical good temper and moderation with regard to every sort of religious principle.” Such is the plan favoured by Adam Smith, and he observes that in Pennsylvania, where it had been adopted, experience justified his opinion. Smith was so popular with his orthodox contemporaries that they tried to parry charges of infidelity by saying either that he had adopted Hume’s opinions out of the intense affection he felt for him, or that he had been perverted by French atheists. “In the course of his travels,” says one of the most broad-minded of his Presbyterian contemporaries (John Ramsay), “he became acquainted with Voltaire and the other French philosophers who were then labouring with unhallowed industry in the vineyard of infidelity.” What impression they made upon him, adds this cautious man, “cannot be precisely known, because neither before nor after this period was his religious creed ever properly ascertained.”