than on theological learning, though they freely availed themselves of all arguments they had access to. And they addressed not theologians but the general public. The form of the argument is a dialogue between A and B; it is plainly a very one-sided discussion.

From The Deist's Bible.'

A. I desire no more than to be allowed, that there's a religion of nature and reason written in the hearts of every one of us from the first creation; by which all mankind must judge of the truth of any instituted religion whatever; and if it varies from the religion of nature and reason in any one particular, nay, in the minutest circumstance, that alone is an argument which makes all things else that can be said for its support totally ineffectual. If so, must not natural religion and external revelation, like two tallies, exactly answer one another; without any other difference between them but as to the manner of their being delivered? And how can it be otherwise? Can laws be imperfect, where a legislator is absolutely perfect? Can time discover any thing to him which he did not foresee from eternity? And as his wisdom is always the same, so is his goodness; and consequently from the consideration of both these, his laws must always be the same.-Is it not from the infinite wisdom and goodness of God, that you suppose the gospel a most perfect law, incapable of being repealed, or altered, or of having additions; and must not you own the law of nature as perfect a law, except you will say, that God did not arrive to the perfection of wisdom and goodness till about seventeen hundred years since ?

To plead that the gospel is incapable of any additions, because the will of God is immutable, and his law too perfect to need them, is an argument, was Christianity a new religion, which destroys itself; since from the time it commenced, you must own God is mutable; and that such additions have been made to the all-perfect laws of infinite wisdom as constitute a new religion. The reason why the law of nature is immutable is because it is founded on the unalterable reason of things; but if God is an arbitrary Being, and can command things meerly from will and pleasure; some things to-day, and others to-morrow; there is nothing either in the nature of God or in the things themselves to hinder him from perpetually changing his mind. If he once commanded things without reason, there can be no reason why he may not endlessly change such commands.

Anthony Collins (1676-1729), deist, born near Hounslow, passed from Eton to King's College, Cambridge, and became the disciple and friend of John Locke. In 1707 he published his Essay concerning the Use of Reason; in 1709 Priestcraft in Perfection. In Holland he made the friendship of Le Clerc; in 1713 his Discourse on Free-thinking, that to which Bentley replied in his famous Remarks, attracted much attention, and explicitly insisted on the value and necessity of unprejudiced inquiry in religious matters. great argument for it is the mutually destructive dogmas of priests throughout the world, in all faiths and Churches. While there is no direct polemic against the truths of revealed religion,

the way the 'ever blessed Trinity' is referred to manifestly does not suggest faith in it; and there is an obvious aim to shake confidence in the canon of Scripture and its infallibility. In his Grounds and Reasons of the Christian Religion, published in 1724, Collins argues that Christianity is founded on Judaism, and that its main support is the argument for the fulfilment of the prophecies. And yet no interpretation of them will stand a strict and non-allegorical fulfilment in the New Testament. The inference is not directly drawn, but is patent enough. In the course of the book he gives most of the arguments now held to prove that Daniel deals with past or contemporaneous events and dates from the Maccabean period.

From the 'Discourse on Free-thinking.'

The priests throughout the world differ about Scriptures, and the authority of Scriptures. The Bramins have a book of Scripture called the Shasters. The Persees have their Zundavastaw [Zend-avesta]. The Bonzes of China have books written by the disciples of Fo-he [Buddha], whom they call the God and Saviour of the world, who was born to teach the way of salvation, and to give satisfaction for all mens sins. The Talapoins of Siam have a book of Scripture written by Sommonocodom [Sakya-muni, Buddha], who, the Siamese say, was born of a virgin, and was the God expected by the universe. Dervizes have their Alchoran. The rabbis among the Samaritans, who now live at Sichem in Palestine, receive the five books of Moses (the copy whereof is very different from ours) as their Scripture ; together with a Chronicon, or history of themselves from Moses's time, quite different from that contained in the historical books of the Old Testament. This Chronicon is lodged in the publick library of Leyden, and has never been published in print. The rabbis among the common herd of Jews received for Scripture the fourand-twenty books of the Old Testament. The priests of the Roman Church, of the English and other Protestant Churches, receive for Scripture the four-and-twenty books of the Old Testament, and all the books of the New Testament: but the Roman receives several other books, called Apocrypha, as canonical, which all the Protestant churches utterly reject, except the Church of England, which differently from all other Christian churches, receives them as half canonical, reading some parts of them in their churches, and thereby excluding some chapters of canonical Scripture from being read. . . . The priests of all Christian churches differ among themselves in each church about the copies of the same books of Scripture; some reading them according to one manuscript, and others according to another. But the great dispute of all is concerning the Hebrew and Septuagint, between which two there is a great difference; (the latter making the world 1500 years older than the former :) to name no other differences of greater or less importance.

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Lastly, As the most ancient Christian churches and priests received several gospels and books of Scripture which are now lost, such as the Gospel according to the Hebrews, the Gospel according to the Egyptians, the Traditions of Matthias, &c., and as not one father in the two first centuries (whose works now remain) but received books of Scripture which are either lost to us, or that we

reject as Apocryphal : so the several sects of Christians in the East and in Africa receive at this day some books of Scripture, which are so far lost to us, that we know only their names, and others which we have and reject. As for instance, the Reverend Dr Grabe tells us of a book received by the Copticks, called the Secrets of Peter, of which we have no copy; and Ludolphus tells us that the Abyssinian Christians receive the Apostolick Constitutions; and Postellus brought from the East, where it was in use, the Gospel of James: both which we reject as Apocryphal.

The same books of Scripture have, among those priests who receive them, a very different degree of authority; some attributing more, and others less authority to them. The Popish priests contend that the text of Scripture is so corrupted, precarious, and unintelligible, that we are to depend on the authority of their church for the true particulars of the Christian religion. Others, who contend for a greater perfection in the text of Scripture, differ about the inspiration of those books; some contending that every thought and word are inspired; some that the thoughts are inspired, and not the words; some that those thoughts only are inspired which relate to fundamentals; and others that the books were written by honest men with great care and faithfulness, without any inspiration either with respect to the thoughts or words. In like manner, the Bramins, Persees, Bonzes, Talapoins, Dervizes, Rabbis, and all other priests who build their religion on books, must from the nature of things vary about books in the same religion, about the inspiration, and copies of those books.

The priests differ about the sense and meaning of those books they receive as sacred. This is evident from the great number of sects in each religion, founded on the diversity of senses put on their several Scriptures. And tho the books of the Old and New Testament are the immediate dictates of God himself, and all other Scriptures are the books of imposters; yet are the priests of the Christian church (like the priests of all other churches) not only divided into numberless sects, on account of their different interpretations of them, but even the priests of the same sect differ endlessly in opinion about their sense and meaning.

To set this matter before you in the clearest manner, and to possess you with the justest idea of the differences among priests about the sense and meaning of their Scriptures, and to make my argument the stronger for the duty and necessity of free-thinking; I will confine myself to the most divine of all books, and by consequence the best adapted of any to prevent diversity of opinion; and will take the following method. First, I will give you an idea of the nature of our holy books; whereby you'll see the foundation therein laid for a diversity of opinions among the priests of the Christian church. And, Secondly, I will give you a specimen of the diversity of opinions among the priests of the Church of England, pretended to be deduced from them: for all their differences are too great to be enumerated. From whence you'll easily infer, that there must be an infinite number of opinions among all other sorts of priests as to the meaning of their Scriptures; since the most divine of all books lays such a foundation for difference of opinion, that priests of the same sect are not able to agree, tho neither art, nor force, nor interest are wanting to compel them to an agreement of opinion.

Thomas Woolston (1669–1731), the son of a Northampton currier, became a Fellow of Sidney Sussex, Cambridge, took orders, and was in 1697 elected ecclesiastical lecturer in the university. An enthusiastic student of Origen, in 1705 he published the Old Apology for the Truth of the Christian Religion, affirming that the Mosaic story was allegorical, a prophetic parable of Christ. But from being a sound and dignified scholar and a popular preacher, he became gradually so aggressive in his criticism on the clergy and those who abode by the literal interpretation of Scripture that his friends thought him a little crazed. The Moderator between the Infidel and the Apostate (developed in a second series, 1721-23) was to show that the gospel miracles could not prove Christ to be the Messiah; he disputed the reality of the incarnation in a virgin and of the resurrection, and developed a facetious vein that was as offensive as his thesis; and in 1721 his college deprived him of his fellowship. In his famous six Discourses on the Miracles of Christ (1727–29, with two Defences) he maintained that the gospel narratives taken literally were a tissue of absurdities. Sixty answers were made to the Discourses; and an indictment for blasphemy was brought against Woolston. He was sentenced to a year's imprisonment and a fine of £100; and unable to pay so considerable a sum, this partial anticipator of the mythical theory of Strauss died, a martyr to his convictions, within the rules of King's Bench. His works were collected in 1733 with a Life.

From the 'Defence.'

I have promised the world, what, by the assistance of God, and the leave of the Government, shall be published, a Discourse on the mischiefs and inconveniencies of an hired and established priesthood: in which it shall be shewn (I.) That the preachers of Christianity in the first ages of the church (when the gospel was far and near spread, and triumphed over all opposition of Jews and Gentiles) neither received nor insisted on any wages for their pains, but were against preaching for hire; and, as if they had been endewed with the spirit of prophecy, before an hireling priesthood was established, predicted their abolition and ejection out of Christ's church; (II.) That since the establishment of an hire for the presthood, the progress of Christianity has not only been stopt, but lost ground; the avarice, ambition, and power of the clergy having been of such unspeakable mischief to the world, as is enough to make a man's heart ake to think, read, or write of; (III.) That upen an abolition of our present established priesthood, and on God's call of his own ministers, the profession of the gospel will again spread; and virtue, religion, and learning will more than ever flourish and abound. The clergy are forewarned of my design to publish such a Discourse; and this is the secret reason, whatever openly they may pretend, of their accusations against me for blasphemy and infidelity. Their zeal and industry will be never wanting to prevent the pub lication of this Discourse; neither need I doubt of persecution, if they can excite the Government to it, to that end.

In my first Discourse on Miracles, I happened to treat on that of Jesus's driving the buyers and sellers out of the Temple; which, upon the authority of the Fathers, I shewed to be a figure of his future ejection of bishops, priests, and deacons out of his church for making merchandise of the gospel. The Bishop has taken me and that miracle to task; and if ever any man smiled at another's impertinence, I then heartily laughed when I read him. I begged of the Bishop before-hand not to meddle with that miracle, because it was a hot one, and would burn his fingers. But for all my caution, he has been so fool-hardy as to venture upon it, but has really touched and handled it as if it was a burning' coal. He takes it up, and as soon drops it again to blow his fingers; then endeavours to throw a little water on this and that part of it to cool it, but all would not do. The most fiery part of it, viz. that of its being a type of Jesus's future ejection of mercenary preachers out of the church, he has not, I may say it, at all touched, except by calling it my allegorical invective against the Maintenance of the Clergy; which is such a piece of Corinthian effrontery in the Bishop, that was he not resolved to lye and defame at all rates, for the support of their interests, he could never have had the face to have uttered. If the Bishop had proved that that miracle (which literally was such a—, as I dare not now call it) neither was nor could be a shadow and resemblance of Jesus's ejection of hired priests out of the church at his second Advent, and that the Fathers were not of this opinion, he had knocked me down at once. As he has done nothing of this, so he might have spared his pains in support of the letter of this story. But I shall have a great deal of diversion with the Bishop when I come, in a proper place, to defend my exposition of that miracle. In the mean time, as the Bishop has published one of the Articles of my Christian Faith, thinking to render me odious for it; so here I will insert another, viz. 'I believe upon the authority of the Fathers, that the spirit and power of Jesus will soon enter the church, and expel hireling priests, who make merchandise of the gospel, out of her, after the manner he is supposed to have driven the buyers and sellers out of the Temple.'

Thomas Chubb (1679–1747), deist, was born at East-Harnham near Salisbury. His father, a maltster, died early, so that the children were poorly educated and early sent to work. Thomas was first apprenticed to a glover in Salisbury, but his eyesight failing, in 1705 he became a tallow-chandler. He had already contrived to do a good deal of reading, when a perusal of the 'historical preface' to Whiston's Primitive Christianity Revived impelled him to write his own tract, The Supremacy of the Father Asserted, which Whiston helped him to publish in 1715. Encouraged by several patrons, one of whom sent him suits of clothes which had been little worn, while another gave him a money subsidy, the 'wonderful phenomenon of Wiltshire,' as Pope called him, continued to write; and a quarto volume of his tracts, published in 1730, made his name widely known. Enquiries concerning sin, justification, prayer, the justice of God; A Discourse concerning Reason; and The True Gospel of Jesus Christ Asserted, were among his principal publications. His opinions drifted

from Arianism of Clarke's type nearer and nearer to deism, yet he went regularly to church, and regarded the mission of Jesus as divine, though he did not regard Christ as God. Most of his views were common to him and the other deists. He attacks the common theory of inspiration, though his own view, quoted below, does not go far beyond what is held consistent with modern orthodoxy-as is the case with many of the contentions once accounted alarmingly deistical. He denounces such Old Testament stories as the proposed human sacrifice by Abraham, insists on the sufficiency of reason and the needlessness of miracles, and argues that the true gospel of Christ consisted mainly in the necessity of morality and repentance for sin to secure the mercy of God here and hereafter. He was a modest and estimable

man.

From 'Remarks on the Scriptures.'

Amongst the many complaints made against me, occasioned by the publication of my dissertations, this I apprehend to be the principal; namely, that I have fallen foul of the Bible, and have not paid it the deference which I ought; and that, in consequence thereof, I have dug up foundations, and greatly unsettled the minds of men. So that the present questions are, how, or in what respect, have I fallen foul of the Bible? What foundations have I dug up? And what minds have I unsettled thereby? And first, how, or in what respect, have I fallen foul of the Bible? And wherein have I fallen short of paying it the deference it has a right to claim? Why, truly, I have taken the liberty to enquire into the conduct and behaviour of some of our Old-Testament saints, which stand upon record in it. I have also withheld my assent from such facts therein related, and from such propositions therein contained, as have the marks of incredibility upon them, when having no other evidence to support them than the bare authority of the writer. And is this all? To which it may, perhaps, be thought sufficient to answer, that this ministers just ground for complaint. Upon which I observe, that the Bible is held forth, and recommended to us, as a proper guide, by way of example, doctrine, and precept, to our understandings, our affections and actions; and therefore, most assuredly, the Bible of all other books ought strictly to be examined, and most carefully to be enquired into; and we ought to lend each other all the assistance we can in making the inquisition, because otherwise we are in great danger of being misled. As I am required to follow the examples of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises, and as the characters of those I am required to imitate are compounded of good actions and bad; so the very nature of the thing calls upon me and obliges me diligently to examine, and carefully to distinguish and separate those men's virtues from their vices; because otherwise I am in danger of following them, as well in their bad deeds as in their good; which must render the case, without such inquisition, most hazardous to me, and to all others who have the Bible put into their hands. The Bible is a collection of bo ks, wrote at different, and, some parts of it, at very distant times, by a variety of persons, upon many subjects; whose authors, as they plainly appear to have had very different sentiments, and sometimes, perhaps, to have differed from themselves, so it is not unlikely but

they may have had very different views, as that has been pretty much the case of writers at all times; and therefore, I think, it is not doing justice to the Deity to call it, in the gross, the revealed will and word of God, whatever some parts of it may be conceived to be. The Bible is such a composition as that the most opposite tenets are extracted from it, as the many controversies that now, and at all times past, have subsisted in the Christian church do plainly demonstrate; and by this means it has been the groundwork of most of the heresies and schisms that have taken place in Christendom, and has occasioned great confusion, each one appealing to the Bible as the standard which their pretensions are to be tryed by. And tho' the various denominations of Christians have racked their inventions or conceiving powers in order to reconcile its most disagreeing parts, yet, alas! it is as easy to make the two pole-stars meet in a point as fairly to make all the parts of this composition center in any one of the many systems that have been grounded upon it. This collection of writings has been the parent of doctrines most dishonourable to God and most injurious to men, such as the doctrines of absolute unconditional election and reprobation, of religious persecution, and the like. This being the case, it furnishes out a reason, more than sufficient, to engage every considerate man, who would see with his own eyes, would follow the guidance of his own understanding, and thereby would act consonant to his intelligent nature, carefully to read, and attentively to consider what he reads in the Bible, thereby to prevent his being misled; and this, I presume, is a sufficient apology for my doing as I have done with relation thereto.

Besides, this book, called the holy Bible, contains many things that are greatly below and unworthy of the Supreme Deity. That God should specially interpose to acquaint men with, and to transmit to posterity, such trifling observations as that two are better than one, that which is crooked cannot be made streight, that which is wanting cannot be numbered, and the like; or that he should spirit men with, approve of, or countenance such malevolent desires as these: Let his children be fatherless and his wife a widow; let his children be continually vagabonds, and beg; let them also seek their bread out of their desolate places; let the extortioner catch all that he hath, and let the stranger spoil his labour; let there be none to extend mercy to him, neither let there be any to favour his fatherless children; let his posterity be cut off, and in the generation following let their name be blotted out. I say that such trifling observations, and such malevolent desires as these, should be considered as the offering of God is playing at hazard indeed. That the travels and adventures of Naomy and her two sons, Mahlon and Chilion, into the country of Moab (as in the book of Ruth) is true, perhaps, may not be disputed; but that God should specially interpose to transmit such an insignificant relation to posterity, when we have nothing to ground the supposition upon, seems to me to be taking too great a liberty with the character and conduct of the Deity. There are many things contained in that collection of writings commonly called the Bible that are much below and unworthy of the most perfect intelligence and boundless goodness; that these should be made the act of the Supreme Deity, should be declared to be a revelation from and the very word of God, without so much as a seeming reason or ground for so doing, any otherwise than to support the

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religious systems men have imbibed, or, perhaps, the schemes of worldly policy they are engaged in; this, surely, is not acting properly, nor even justly, by the common and kind parent of the universe. For men thus to father upon God whatever they please is taking such a liberty with the character and conduct of the supreme Deity as no honest upright man would take with that of his neighbour and if such practising should not come under the denomination of blasphemy, which it scarcely falls short of; yet it must, at least, be a very strange kind of piety. Yea, such is the extraordinary piety of this age (like that of doing honour and service to God by killing his servants), that if a man, in conscience of that duty he owes to his maker, takes upon him to vindicate the moral character of the Deity in opposition to the religious system in vogue, or what passes for current orthodoxy, he may be sure to fall under the imputation of being a free-thinker, a Deist (those terms being used in a bad sense), or, perhaps, an Atheist.

And as to the preceptive parts of the Bible, there is a difficulty attends them that is unsurmountable to me; viz. what is required to be done at one time, and under one dispensation, is forbid to be done under another, whilst human nature continues the same, and men's relations, and dependencies, and the obligations that arise from them, continue the same also. The Deity cannot but perceive things as they really are, at all times, whatever colouring or shading men may draw over them; and therefore, to suppose that he commands and forbids the same thing, whilst the natures, the relations, and the circumstances of men and things continue the same; this, I say, is to me an unsurmountable difficulty. Matthew v. 38: Ye have heard that it hath been said; or ye have read, Exodus xxi. 23, 24, 25, Life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe. Upon which I observe, if such a retaliation of injuries as this is, in its own nature, proper to restrain men's viciated appetites and passions, and therefore was appointed under the dispensation of Moses; then, for the same reason, it ought to be appointed and executed under all dispensations, because mankind are the same, they have the same appetites and passions, and are liable to indulge them to excess at all times and under all dispensations. Whereas, Jesus Christ reversed the aforesaid law of retaliation, ver 39: But I say unto ye, that ye resist not evil; but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. Here, we see, Christ hath not only forbid all resistance of evil, but he also requires the patient, when he has sustained a first injury, to be a volunteer with regard to a second, and to meet it half-way.

William Nicolson (1655-1727), successively Bishop of Carlyle and Londonderry, and Archbishop of Cashel, was a learned antiquary and historical writer; his Historical Libraries of Eng land, Scotland, and Ireland (1696-1724) being detailed catalogues or lists of books and manuscripts referring to the history of each nation. He also wrote An Essay on the Border Laws, A Treatise on the Laws of the Anglo-Saxons, A Description of Poland and Denmark, a preface to Chamberlayne's Polyglot of the Lord's Prayer, and some able pamphlets on the Bangorian Controversy; and left many interesting letters.

Earl of Shaftesbury.

Anthony Ashley Cooper (1671-1713), third Earl of Shaftesbury, was born in London, son of the second Earl satirised by Dryden as a 'shapeless lump,' and grandson of the brilliant, eloquent, unconscionable first Earl, the Ashley of the Cabal. Locke superintended his early education at Clapham; and he spent three years at Winchester and three more in travel. On his three visits to Holland he formed friendships with Bayle and Le Clerc. A zealous Whig, he sat for Poole in 1695-98, but ill-health drove him from politics to literature. He succeeded to the earldom in 1699, and spoke frequently and well in the House of Lords. Toland published, without leave, in 1699 his boyish Inquiry Concerning Merit and Virtue, which contained many of the views expounded in his later works. His (anonymous) Letter on Enthusiasm (1708) was prompted by the extravagance of the 'French prophets,' the Huguenot refugees who revived in England the visionary claims to the gift of prophecy asserted by the persecuted Camisards. What he meant by 'enthusiasm' was fanaticism or extravagance; he would have professed himself an enthusiast in our sense for truth, beauty, and goodness. Disapproving

equally the fanatic and the persecutor, he pled for 'good humour' in religious controversy.

In 1709 appeared his Moralists, a Philosophical Rhapsody, which is inaptly described as a dialogue, since it contains long disquisitions by a third interlocutor; only towards the end does it become a rhapsody and an impassioned hymn to nature, which reads like a prose version of a poem. The treatise has less to do with the principles of morals than with the method and order of the universe as an argument for a God, the origin of evil, a future life, and the nature of human society. In the survey of nature in the third part there is an outpouring—surely remarkable in the early eighteenth century—on the beauty and terror, the majesty and mystery, of lofty mountain scenery. And there is an amusing passage levelled against what is now called psychical research; against 'the sort of people who are always on the hot scent of some new prodigy or apparition, some upstart revelation or prophecy,' against 'rambling in blind corners of the world in ghostly company of spirit-hunters, witch-finders, and layers-out for hellish stories and diabolical transactions. There is no need of such intelligence from hell to prove the power of heaven and being of a God.' Sensus Communis (1709), an essay upon the freedom of wit and humour, vindicates the use of ridicule as a test of truth, a doctrine already set forth in the Letter on Enthusiasm; but Shaftesbury is quite misunderstood if he is supposed to mean that facetious or frivolous raillery should supersede serious argument. His argument was that irrational folly and superstition could better be met by a humorous reductio ad absurdum than by angry polemic,

violence, or persecution. No sane person would ridicule the truth; but if truth is ridiculed, it suffers nothing, whereas hallucinations and impostures can be laughed out of court. In 1710 appeared his Soliloquy, or Advice to an Author. In 1711 he issued a collection of his works in three volumes, under the general title of Characteristics of Men, Manners, Opinions, and Times. Here appeared again his revised Inquiry Concerning Virtue; and the third volume contained Miscellaneous Reflections. The Characteristics were reissued in ten other editions before the end of the century, and were translated into French and German. Ill-health having compelled him to seek a warmer climate, this independent thinker died in Naples at the age of forty-two.

The style of Shaftesbury is studied and rhythmical, sometimes even artificial and affected; he too obviously bestowed great pains on the construction of his sentences. It was of purpose that he exchanged continuity, precision, and simplicity for artistic discursiveness; and in order to display the nobleman in the author, he assumes at times an air which suggests the superfineness and superficiality of the virtuoso, deliberately proposing 'to regulate his language by the standard of good company.' He was hostile to Locke's philosophy, was an ardent admirer of the ancients, imitated Plato, and preached Stoicism; his Askemata, published in 1901, are mainly texts, with comments, from Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius.

He was fiercely attacked as a deist; and his very vagueness on religious problems allies him with the deists, even if his sceptical or free-andeasy attitude towards Scripture, especially towards the Old Testament, were not plainly apparent. In his style and method of discussion he was unlike the bulk of the deists; he protested against those 'who pay handsome compliments to the Deity,' but 'explode devotion' and leave but little of zeal, affection, or warmth in what they call rational religion. He has more in common with those who later in Germany broke the power of self-complacent rationalism than with the rationalists properly so called. But by his effective, attractive style he influenced thousands untouched by such writers as Collins or Tindal, and greatly promoted the cause the deists had at heart. Like most of the deists, he was a theist, and denounced atheism, though his theism at times seems closely akin to pantheism. His work was, on the whole, a powerful plea for freedom in the search for truth, for frank speech, and for toleration.

Shaftesbury, though he borrowed much from the Greeks, from Cumberland, and from others, may rank as founder of the school of English moralists who, holding virtue and vice as naturally and fundamentally distinct, believe man to be endowed with a 'moral sense' by which these are discriminated and at once approved of or condemned, without reference to the self-interest of him who judges. In opposition to Hobbes,