Here was the effective damage that the Encyclopaedia inflicted on the church as the organ of a stationary superstition.

Some of the articles remind us on what a strange borderland France stood in those days, between debasing credulity and wholesome light.

We are so sensible of the new air that breathes impalpably over the book, that when the old theological fancies appear for form's sake, and are solemnly marshalled in orthodox state, the contrast and the incongruity are so marked that one is amused by what looks like a subtle irony, mocking the censor under his very eyes.
Who can help smiling at the grave question, _Adam, le premier de tous les hommes, a-t-il ete philosophe ?_ Such disputes as whether it is proper to baptize abortions, ceased to interest a public that had begun to educate itself by discussions on the virtue of Inoculation.
Of the gross defects in the execution of the Encyclopaedia nobody was so sensible as Diderot himself.

He drew up a truly formidable list of the departments where the work was badly done.[171] But when the blunders and omissions in each subject were all counted, the value of the vast grouping of the subjects was hardly diminished.

The union of all these secular acquisitions in a single colossal work invested them with something imposing.