Page:Voltaire (Hamley).djvu/210

 unison with that creed and with his own frequently-expressed views of the obligations which man's conscience enjoins; but he put no faith in the morality of the Old Testament, nor in the miracles of Scripture. He had the strongest belief in the elevating effects of developing the human intellect: to this he considered the Catholic Church and Clergy as systematically opposed; and hence his unceasing hostility to them. While the mind of the time saw before it the prospects, so full of promise, which the great movements of the sixteenth century had opened, the dominant religious body opposed a rigid bar to progress, not only in the doctrines which it inculcated, but in its system of education, which, dealing well and thoroughly with the learning of the past, sought to arrest, in all directions, the advance of thought. It is in writing to D'Alembert that he frequently insists on the necessity of putting an end to what he designates as "the Infamous:"—

"I want you to crush the Infamous—that is the great point. It must be reduced to the position which it occupies in England: 'tis the greatest service that can be rendered to the human race. You will perceive that I speak only of superstition; as for religion, I love and respect it as you do."

Afterwards, D'Alembert, in a letter to Voltaire, defines very clearly the views of both:—

"For me, who see everything just now in a rose-coloured light, I think I behold the Jansenists perishing next year, after having, this year, brought the Jesuits to a violent end—toleration established, the Protestants recalled, priests mar-