"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. CHAPTER V. THE CHURCH AND VOLTAIRE. The enemies of the Church of France were many and bitter, but one man stands out prominent among them. Voltaire was a poet, much admired in his day, an industrious and talented historian, a writer on all sorts of subjects, a wit of dazzling brilliancy; but he was first, last, and always an enemy of the Catholic Church, and although not quite an atheist, an opponent of all forms of religion. For more than forty years he was the head of the party of the Philosophers. During all that time he was the most conspicuous of literary Frenchmen. Two others, Rousseau and Montesquieu, may rival him in influence on the modern world, but his followers in the regions of thought are numerous and aggressive to-day.