The essence of this philosophy was to make man the final cause of the universe.

Its interpretation of the world was absolute; its conception of the Creator was absolute; its account of our intellectual impressions, of our moral rules, of our spiritual ideals, made them all absolute.

Now Diderot, when he wrote the Letter on the Blind, perceived that mere rationalistic attacks upon the sacred books, upon the miracles, upon the moral types, of Catholicism, could only be partially effective for destruction, and could have no effect at all in replacing the old ways of thinking by others of more solid truth.

The attack must begin in philosophy.

The first fruitful process must consist in shifting the point of view, in enlarging the range of the facts to be considered, in pressing the relativity of our ideas, in freeing ourselves from the tyranny of anthropomorphism.
Hobbes's witty definition of the papacy as the ghost of the old Roman Empire sitting enthroned on the grave thereof, may tempt us to forget the all-important truth that the basis of the power of the ghost was essentially different from that of the dissolved body.