Critical History of Eclecticism

...[one might have had] an exact knowledge of the Eclectic Sect The "Eclectic" school refers here to the Neoplatonists of late antiquity, whom 18th-century thinkers often debated to determine how much they influenced early Christian doctrine.. But he has greatly surpassed the faults of his guide The "guide" refers to Jacob Brucker (1696–1770), whose monumental history of philosophy was the primary source used by Diderot for the Encyclopédie.; since he has filled his pretended History of Eclecticism with revolting infidelities In this context, "infidelities" refers to historical inaccuracies or a lack of faithfulness to the source material., and with features suited to give rise to doubts about the truth of Christianity: a proceeding which offers a phenomenon to which one must not refuse one's attention.

For after all, the greatest interest of the Encyclopedist Encyclopedist: A contributor to the Encyclopédie (1751–1772), a landmark work of the Enlightenment edited by Diderot and d'Alembert, often criticized by the clergy for its skeptical and secular tone., as of all the other members of Society, is to have good parents, good fellow citizens, and good friends. By what quirk, then, does he work to spoil them, to corrupt them, and to pervert them? If one persuades them that Christianity goes hand-in-hand with Mohammedanism original: "Mahométisme." An archaic term for Islam. and Polytheism; that all Religions are the work of politics, of fraud, or of Fanaticism; then parents, and