This is an unexpected stroke in a work that is vulgarly supposed to be a violent manifesto on behalf of atheism.[172] Diderot himself in an earlier article (_Intolerance_) had treated the subject with more trenchant energy.

He does not argue his points systematically, but launches a series of maxims, as with set teeth, clenched hands, and a brow like a thundercloud.

He hails the oppressors of his life, the priests and the parliaments, with a pungency that is exhilarating, and winds up with a description of the intolerant as one who forgets that a man is his fellow, and for holding a different opinion, treats him like a ravening brute; as one who sacrifices the spirit and precepts of his religion to his pride; as the rash fool who thinks that the arch can only be upheld by his hands; as a man who is generally without religion, and to whom it comes easier to have zeal than morals.

Every page of the Encyclopaedia was, in fact, a plea for toleration.

This embittered the hostility of the churchmen to the work more than its attack upon dogma.