We wholly misjudge the Encyclopaedia, if we treat it either as literature or philosophy.
The attitude of the Encyclopaedia to religion is almost universally misrepresented in the common accounts.

We are always told that the aim of its conductors was to preach dogmatic atheism.

Such a statement could not be made by any one who had read the theological articles, whether the more or the less important among them.

Whether Diderot had himself advanced definitely to the dogma of atheism at this time or not, it is certain that the Encyclopaedia represents only the phase of rationalistic scepticism.

That the criticism was destructive of much of the fabric of popular belief, and was designed to destroy it, is undeniable, as it was inevitable.