A gross fallacy conceals itself in this argument. Every genuine, overpowering enthusiasm naturally makes tolerance impossible. Yet Voltaire's doctrine is none the less valid because of this. The difficulty is easy of solution. The principle of intolerance is the theoretical, that of tolerance the practical, principle. In theory no consideration, no toleration, no mercy! For error must be crushed and torn asunder, follies must be blown from the cannon's mouth, and lies flayed alive. But what about the liar, and the fool, and the erring one? Are they also to be hewn asunder, or flayed alive, or blown from the cannon's mouth? They are to go their way. The domain of real life is the domain of tolerance.
De Maistre's _Examen de la philosophie de Bacon_ was not published until after its author's death. It is the most disputatious and tedious of his works, and one in which the combative champion of Christianity is plainly grappling with a subject that is beyond his powers. He desired to confute Bacon because he believed that the ungodliness of the French philosophy of the eighteenth century was entirely to be ascribed to his influence; and he falls upon him with positive theological fury, attacking all his theories--his theory of consciousness, of nature, of light, of the weather, of the soul, of religion; attacking him where he is right, and where, for once in a way, he is wrong; finding him out in immaterial and merely superficial inconsistencies; pointing out defects in his Latin and in his taste; fighting in a noisy, violent, dogmatic manner, with weapons drawn from the arsenals of supernaturalism and tradition. In single chapters, such as that on _Causes Finales_, he displays a certain futile acuteness; in others, such as that entitled _Union de la Religion et de la Science_, cold-blooded fanaticism. In this latter chapter we read: "Science undoubtedly has its value, but it is necessary that it should be kept within bounds.... It has been very aptly said that science resembles fire: confined to the hearths which are destined to receive it, it is man's most useful and powerful servant; left to the hazard of chance, it is a terrible scourge."
Faithful to his rule of allowing no stain to cling to the shield or sword of the church, he vehemently maintains (contradicting an assertion of Bacon's French translator) that the church has never opposed the progress of natural science. The translator had plainly affirmed that nothing had injured the church more than the clear demonstration of the truth of certain facts which it had long denied, and the proclaimers of which it had actually persecuted; and he had named Galileo as an example. After lauding the church as the patron of science in other cases, and trying as far as possible to explain away the case of Galileo, De Maistre is forced to make an admission. And this is how he does it: "Galileo was condemned by the Inquisition, that is to say, by a court liable to err like any other, and which in this case actually was mistaken regarding the main point at issue; but Galileo in numberless ways damaged his own cause, and by his own repeated indiscretions brought upon himself a humiliation which he might easily, and without dishonour, have avoided.... If he had kept his promise not to write, if he had not been determined to find proof in Holy Scripture of the truth of the Copernican theory, if he had even written in Latin instead of unsettling the public mind by employing the vulgar tongue, nothing would have happened to him."