HISTORY OF EUROPE. [233 



thing to her bar, and assumed all 

 power, in both church and state, 

 so reason, in our age, assumed the 

 power of judging every thing not 

 only in the state but the church. 

 Many zealous and ingenious divines 

 were rash enough, and very unne- 

 cessarily,tosubmiteventhemostmys- 

 terious doctrines to the bar of reason. 

 Christian philosophers or reasoners, 

 such as they were, cut and carved 

 the holy Scriptures at a dreadful 

 rate, admitting certain portions to 

 be authentic, but rejecting others 

 as apocryphal, and interpolation. — 

 The consequence was, that multi- 

 tudes of the vulgar began to listen 

 to such men as Thomas Paine, who 

 taught them that this was the age 

 not of faith but of reason. A spirit 

 of attack on the establishments or 

 property of the church, appeared, 

 in many countries, from the court 

 to the cottage. In former times, 

 priests, in exchange for spiritual 

 comfort, received large tracts of 

 land, and even whole districts and 

 territories. The laity began, in the 

 eighteenth century, to resume the 

 donations of their forefathers. The 

 language of the p}'qfa?ium vulgus, to 

 the clergy was this : " Take ye 

 t'other world : we will take this to 

 ourselves." 



These observations, on the most 

 important vicissitudes in opinions 

 and usages, religious and political^ 

 are not foreign to the division of 

 mind : the third head, under which 

 are arranged the objects of our at- 

 tention. Did our bounds admit, we 

 would take a view of the vicissitudes 

 and progress of the philosophy of 

 the human mind, and particularly 

 of moral philosophy. We shall, for 

 the present, content ourselves with 

 advertingtoa general change, (com- 

 prehending many subdivisions,) a 

 kind of revolution in the svstem of 



ethics, which has certainly not been 

 without very considerable influence 

 on the minds of men. In the last 

 century, and the beginning of this, 

 divines and moralists established the 

 foundation of moral obligation in the 

 will of God, directed by his other 

 attributes, in justice, truth, the re- 

 lations and congruities of things : 

 in a word, an act of the understand- 

 ing. — From lord Shaftesbury's wri- 

 tings, re-echoing many of the sub- 

 lime and engaging notions of Pla- 

 to, there arose a school, which found- 

 ed morality in some principle ana- 

 lagous to sensation or sense, or, at 

 least, to that faculty or power, by 

 which we perceive beauty, grace, 

 and harmony, in external objects. 

 As this was the foundation, so was 

 the superstructure, benevolence, 

 generosity, kind affection, com- 

 passion, tenderness, and indul- 

 gence : in a word, all the amiable, 

 melting, and weeping virtues, were 

 all the vogue. The more masculine 

 and stern virtues of rigorous justice 

 and the fulfilment of various severe 

 duties, began to be thought not alto- 

 gether indispensable in an amiable 

 character. Hence arose such lax 

 moralists as Sterne, and the myriads 

 who condescend to imitate that un- 

 principled though humourous buf- 

 foon. But, if that sensational or 

 sentimental philosophy is not to be 

 considered, in any great degree, as 

 the cause of that general relaxation 

 of both mind and morals, which cha- 

 racterizes the present period, it cer- 

 tainly suits it mighty well, and is 

 very convenient to persons of both 

 sexes. 



The eighteenth century was 

 characterized, particularly towards 

 its close, not only by great, but 

 many of these sudden changes. 



Correspondent to the quick com- 

 munication of ideas, was the rapid 



