Treatise on Toleration

de Voltaire, Desmond M. Clarke

'We should think of all human beings as our brothers. What? A Turk as a brother? A Chinaman as a brother? Jews and people from Siam as brothers too? Yes, without doubt, for are we not all children of the same Father and creatures of the same God?' A powerful, impassioned case for the values of freedom of conscience and religious belief, Voltaire's Treatise on Toleration was written after the Toulouse merchant Jean Calas was falsely accused of murdering his son and executed on the wheel in 1762. As it became clear that Calas had been persecuted by 'an irrational mob' for being a Protestant, the Enlightenment philosopher Voltaire began a campaign to vindicate him and his family. The resulting work, a screed against fanaticism and a plea for understanding, is as fresh and urgent today as when it was written.