posite to that which Butler wished to
establish--that a just and beneficent God does not exist. Butler is
driven to fall back on the sceptical argument that we are extremely
ignorant; that all things

[152] are possible, even eternal hell fire; and that therefore the safe
and prudent course is to accept the Christian doctrine. It may be
remarked that this reasoning, with a few modifications, could be used in
favour of other religions, at Mecca or at Timbuctoo. He has, in effect,
revived the argument used by Pascal that if there is one chance in any
very large number that Christianity is true, it is a man's interest to
be a Christian; for, if it prove false, it will do him no harm to have
believed it; if it prove true, he will be infinitely the gainer. Butler
seeks indeed to show that the chances in favour amount to a probability,
but his argument is essentially of the same intellectual and moral value
as Pascal's. It has been pointed out that it leads by an easy logical
step from the Anglican to the Roman Church. Catholics and Protestants
(as King Henry IV of France argued) agree that a Catholic may be saved;
the Catholics assert that a Protestant will be damned; therefore the
safe course is to embrace Catholicism. [3]

I have dwelt at some length upon some of the English deists, because,
while they occupy an important place in the history of

[153] rationalism in England, they also supplied, along with Bayle, a
great deal of the thought which, manipulated by brilliant writers on the
other side of the Channel, captured the educated classes in France. We
are now in the age of Voltaire. He was a convinced deist. He considered
that the nature of the universe proved that it was made by a conscious
architect, he held that God was required in the interests of conduct,
and he ardently combated atheism. His great achievements were his
efficacious labour in the cause of toleration, and his systematic
warfare against superstitions. He was profoundly influenced by English
thinkers, especially Locke and Bolingbroke. This statesman had concealed
his infidelity during his lifetime except from his intimates; he had
lived long as an exile in France; and his rationalistic essays were
published (1754) after his death. Voltaire, whose literary genius
converted the work of the English thinkers into a world-force, did not
begin his campaign against Christianity till after the middle of the
century, when superstitious practices and religio