It is because, the indignant emotions of a worthy heart are more powerful than the cool arguments of offended reason, that we rise with warmth against intolerance; for without this motive it would only deserve our contempt, as indicating a singular littleness of soul. Who can remember without pity, those dissensions so long maintained, in which men, both weak and blind, united in the name of devotion, actuated by self-love, unintelligible decrees, to some important controversy? All these disputes appear foolish when we coolly examine them; and we have only to consider, abstractedly, those quarrels, to discover all their absurdity. But as it is only by spreading knowledge and diffusing wholesome precepts that we can hope to cure enthusiasm and intolerance; we ought to be on our guard against the dangerous spirit of indifference, otherwise one evil will be removed only to introduce another equally fatal; when trying to divert men from fanaticism, we destroy the ideas which served as a foundation for religion. There could not subsist any sound opinion or estimable principle, if the different errors which creep round them were torn away by an awkward or violent hand; and is the evil, which continually mixes with the good, became the subject of blind proscription. Let us loudly acknowledge the benefits which we have received from distinguished writers, who have defended with zeal and energy the cause of toleration; it is an obligation, added to many others, which it is just to acknowledge, that we have received from genius and talents united: but permit us also to observe, that several of those writers have lost a part of the applause due to them, by seeking to depress religion, in order to succeed in their attempt; such a proceeding was unworthy of enlightened philosophers, who more than others ought to assign limits to reason, and never despair of its influence. What should we think, if, amongst those who justly attack the tyranny exercised over conscience, there were some intolerant in the defence of toleration; and if we had reason to reproach them with despising, and sometimes hating those who do not concur with them; and by an inconsiderate imputation of pusillanimity or hypocrisy, make the characters and intentions of those who do not adopt their sentiments appear suspicious? What a strange inconsistency, in a different way, do they not exhibit; forgetting, sometimes, their own opinions, and contradicting, without thinking, their acknowledged incredulity, they raise a clamour about the miseries to which mankind are subject, and display the pretended disorders of the universe, in order, afterwards, to throw an odium on the God whose existence they contest, to ridicule a Providence they do not rely on! One would think, that after having overturned the empire of the Deity, that they might remain the only legislators of the world; they regretted not having any longer a rival, and wished to rebuild the temple they