His next move was to divorce morality from religion. Men could be excellent in Pagan times and they can be wicked in Christian times, yet Christianity is superior to Paganism; obviously religious opinions are independent of the morality of men. He then passed to politics. His idea of religion was far too high to allow him to consider it as an auxiliary of the state’s police as English theorists had often done, and since it had nothing to do with morals the Church could have nothing to do with man as a citizen. This evidently made not only for tolerance, but for indifference on the part of the state in all religious matters. Expelled from science, morality, and politics, religion was thus as good as expelled from life by a mystic simply because he had the sincerity and coherency to be practically consistent with the theoretical ground of the philosophy of the time. Voltaire overshadows the century as Louis XIV had done the preceding one. His greatness does not depend on his contribution to philosophy, but on his immense efficiency as a propagandist of the conclusions reached by philosophy. Like all the great and best men of Illuminism he was absorbed in the moral and religious problem and had most obviously assimilated the best English theories. Less sincere than Bayle, he took up his sceptical conclusions, without, however, sharing his mysticism, and in the prose of the greatest French writer of the century, he set to work to popularise the destructive criticisms of all dogmas. Voltaire may have been convinced that dogmas were harmful, but as he did not bring forward anything to put in their stead his influence was negative. What it would have been without the constant recall to present experience of English empiricism cannot be gauged; as it was, present experience was rather an incentive to dissolve and destroy the whole social order than to build; and towards past experiences there could be no recall whatsoever, or rather there was only one and an original one, but it could not be heard.