15. Four aphorisms from Louis de Jaucourt (1704-1779), ‘Intolerant’, from the Encyclopédie, 1765; William Warburton (1698-1779), Essay on Egyptian Hieroglyphics, 1744; Rousseau, Émile, or On Education; and Anon., ‘Refugees’, from the Encyclopédie, 176525

The person who is intolerant towards or persecutes someone else, treating him like a wild animal just because he holds different views, has forgotten that they are both human. Religion is the pretext for this unjust tyranny, the result of which is that we refuse to tolerate any way of thinking that does not conform to our own.

Jaucourt

But when we see our own countrymen reprobate their native language, and affect to employ only Bible phrases in their whole conversation, as if some inherent sanctity resided in the Eastern modes of expression, we cannot chuse but suspect such men far gone in the delusions of a heated imagination.

Warburton

Humans do not naturally think. Thinking is a skill they learn like any other, only with greater difficulty. There are just two groups into which the sexes can really be separated: the group of people who think, and the group that never do. This difference arises almost exclusively from their education.

Rousseau

What are we to think of the humanity and religion of those who advocate intolerance? Those who believe that violence can shake the faith of others give a contemptible impression of their sentiments and of the very stability of their own faith.

‘Refugees’