ABSTRACT
Toleration was not defended in relativistic terms, that is, the view that since individual experience is different, a variety of religious beliefs becomes necessary, and therefore toleration is desirable. While Voltaire was advocating variety in religious convictions, Montesquieu argued in behalf of multiplicity in political institutions. Montesquieu thus wrote in favor of the separation of powers and political plurality. Voltaire might seem to have agreed, since his arguments for diversity in the religious sphere were similar. The Enlightenment passion for toleration was associated with absolutism; the monarchy was the weapon chosen to dissolve religious coercions and to liberate the individual. Political unity was needed to weaken the Church and to limit clerical authority in order to establish religious liberty. The argument in behalf of religious toleration was tied to the need for political unity. The philosophes failed to confront the real problem of the meaning of religious experience in society.
