icism, powerful though it may be,
is always controlled by reason."

The case of Sirven, though it did not end tragically, was similar, and
the government of Toulouse was again responsible. He was accused of
having drowned his daughter in a well to hinder her from becoming a
Catholic, and was, with his wife, sentenced to death. Fortunately he and
his family had escaped to Switzerland, where they persuaded Voltaire of
their innocence. To get the sentence reversed was the work of nine
years, and this

[110] time it was reversed at Toulouse. When Voltaire visited Paris in
1778 he was acclaimed by crowds as the "defender of Calas and the
Sirvens." His disinterested practical activity against persecution was
of far more value than the treatise on Toleration which he wrote in
connexion with the Calas episode. It is a poor work compared with those
of Locke and Bayle. The tolerance which he advocates is of a limited
kind; he would confine public offices and dignities to those who belong
to the State religion.

But if Voltaire's system of toleration is limited, it is wide compared
with the religious establishment advocated by his contemporary,
Rousseau. Though of Swiss birth, Rousseau belongs to the literature and
history of France; but it was not for nothing that he was brought up in
the traditions of Calvinistic Geneva. His ideal State would, in its way,
have been little better than any theocracy. He proposed to establish a
"civil religion" which was to be a sort of undogmatic Christianity. But
certain dogmas, which he considered essential, were to be imposed on all
citizens on pain of banishment. Such were the existence of a deity, the
future bliss of the good and punishment of the bad, the duty of
tolerance towards all those who accepted the fundamental

[111] articles of faith. It may be said that a State founded on this
basis would be fairly inclusive--that all Christian sects and many deists
could find a place in it. But by imposing indispensable beliefs, it
denies the principle of toleration. The importance of Rousseau's idea
lies in the fact that it inspired one of the experiments in religious
policy which were made during the French Revolution.

The Revolution established religious liberty in France. Most of the
leaders were unorthodox. Their rationalism was naturally of the
eighteenth-century type, and in the preamble to the Declaration of
Rights (1789) deism was asserted by the words "in the presence and under
t