We are constantly struck in the Encyclopaedia by a genuine desire to reach the best opinion by the only right way, the way of abundant, many-sided, and liberal discussion.  The article, for instance, on Fermes Generales contains an examination of the question whether it is more expedient that the taxes of a nation should be gathered by farmers of the revenue, or directly by the agents of the government acting on its behalf and under its supervision.  Montesquieu had argued strongly in favour of a Regie, the second of these methods.  The writer of the article sets out the nine considerations by which Montesquieu had endeavoured to establish his position, and then he offers on each of them the strongest observations that occur to him in support of the opposite conclusion.  At the conclusion of the article, the editors of the Encyclopaedia append the following note:  “Our professed impartiality and our desire to promote the discussion and clearing up of an important question, have induced us to insert this article.  As the Encyclopaedia has for its principal aim the public advantage and instruction, we will insert in the article, Regie, without taking any side, all such reasons for and against, as people may he willing to submit to us, provided they are stated with due sense and moderation.”  Alas, when we turn to the article on Regie, the promise is unfulfilled, and a dozen meagre lines disappoint the seeker.  But eight years of storm had passed, and many a beneficent intention had been wrecked.  The announcement at least shows us the aim and spirit of the original scheme.

Of the line of argument taken in the Encyclopaedia as to Toleration we need say nothing.  The Encyclopaedists were the most ardent propagators of the modern principles of tolerance.  No one has to be reminded that this was something more than an abstract discussion among the doctors of social philosophy, in a country where youths were broken on the wheel for levity in face of an ecclesiastical procession, where nearly every considerable man of the century had been either banished or imprisoned for daring to use his mind, and which had been half ruined by the great proscription of Protestants more than once renewed.  The article Tolerance was greatly admired in its day, and it is an eloquent and earnest reproduction of the pleas of Locke.  One rather curious feature in it is the reproduction of the passage from the Social Contract, in which Rousseau explains the right of the magistrate to banish any citizen who has not got religion enough to make him do his duties, and who will not make a profession of civil faith.  The writer of the article interprets this as implying that “atheists in particular, who remove from the powerful the only rein, and from the weak their only hope,” have no right to claim toleration.  This is an unexpected stroke in a work that is vulgarly supposed to be a violent manifesto on behalf of atheism.[172]