Some literary background

   Nous causâmes aussi de l'univers, de sa création et de sa future destruction; de la grande idée du siècle, c'est-à-dire du progrès et de la perfectibilité, et, en général, de toutes les formes de l'infatuation humaine. Sur ce sujet-là, Son Altesse ne tarissait pas en plaisanteries légères et irréfutables, et elle s'exprimait avec une suavité de diction et une tranquillité dans la drôlerie que je n'ai trouvées dans aucun des plus célèbres causeurs de l'humanité. Elle m'expliqua l'absurdité des différentes philosophies qui avaient jusqu'à présent pris possession du cerveau humain, et daigna même me faire confidence de quelques principes fondamentaux dont il ne me convient pas de partager les bénéfices et la propriété avec qui que ce soit. Elle ne se plaignit en aucune façon de la mauvaise réputation dont elle jouit dans toutes les parties du monde, m'assura qu'elle était, elle-même, la personne la: plus intéressée à la destruction de la superstition,: et m'avoua qu'elle n'avait eu peur, relativement à son propre pouvoir, qu'une seule fois, c'était le jour où elle avait entendu un prédicateur, plus subtil que ses confrères, s ‘écrier en chaire: « Mes chers frères, n'oubliez jamais, quand vous entendrez vanter le progrès des lumières, que la plus belle des ruses du diable est de vous persuader qu'il n'existe pas ! »
   Le souvenir de ce célèbre orateur nous conduisit naturellement vers le sujet des académies, et mon étrange convive m'affirma qu'il ne dédaignait pas, en beaucoup de cas, d'inspirer la plume, la parole et la conscience des pédagogues; et qu'il assistait presque toujours en personne, quoique invisible, à toutes les séances académiques.

- Charles Baudelaire: Le Joueur généreux

I'll let it stand like this. Not to get anything wrong, you may copy it into translate.google.com. Dostoevsky was obviously impressed by this. So here's his take, this time translated.

   “That is an artful and traitorous idea. A smart notion,” vociferated the clerk, “thrown out as an apple of discord. But it is just. You are a scoffer, a man of the world, a cavalry officer, and, though not without brains, you do not realize how profound is your thought, nor how true. Yes, the laws of self-preservation and of self-destruction are equally powerful in this world. The devil will hold his empire over humanity until a limit of time which is still unknown. You laugh? You do not believe in the devil? Scepticism as to the devil is a French idea, and it is also a frivolous idea. Do you know who the devil is? Do you know his name? Although you don’t know his name you make a mockery of his form, following the example of Voltaire. You sneer at his hoofs, at his tail, at his horns — all of them the produce of your imagination! In reality the devil is a great and terrible spirit, with neither hoofs, nor tail, nor horns; it is you who have endowed him with these attributes! But . . . he is not the question just now!”
   “How do you know he is not the question now?” cried Hippolyte, laughing hysterically.
   “Another excellent idea, and worth considering!” replied Lebedeff. “But, again, that is not the question. The question at this moment is whether we have not weakened ‘the springs of life’ by the extension . . . ”
   “Of railways?” put in Colia eagerly.
   “Not railways, properly speaking, presumptuous youth, but the general tendency of which railways may be considered as the outward expression and symbol. We hurry and push and hustle, for the good of humanity! ‘The world is becoming too noisy, too commercial!’ groans some solitary thinker. ‘Undoubtedly it is, but the noise of waggons bearing bread to starving humanity is of more value than tranquillity of soul,’ replies another triumphantly, and passes on with an air of pride. As for me, I don’t believe in these waggons bringing bread to humanity. For, founded on no moral principle, these may well, even in the act of carrying bread to humanity, coldly exclude a considerable portion of humanity from enjoying it; that has been seen more than once.
   “What, these waggons may coldly exclude?” repeated someone.
   “That has been seen already,” continued Lebedeff, not deigning to notice the interruption. “Malthus was a friend of humanity, but, with ill-founded moral principles, the friend of humanity is the devourer of humanity, without mentioning his pride; for, touch the vanity of one of these numberless philanthropists, and to avenge his self-esteem, he will be ready at once to set fire to the whole globe; and to tell the truth, we are all more or less like that. I, perhaps, might be the first to set a light to the fuel, and then run away. But, again, I must repeat, that is not the question.”

- Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky: The Idiot

Evidently Baudelaire and Dostoevsky are saying the same thing, namely that a scientific administration that is deciding the fates of people by adjusting numbers is very much in danger to succumb to petty motives behind its clean desks and do distant harm by decree. So much for the meaning of:

The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist.

In other words: Baudelaire and Dostoevsky foresaw the rising trajectory of callousness at its lift-off in the 19th century.