524 PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT. 



Protestantism heralded the era of independent thought 

 and free inquiry. And the task became still more 

 urgent when, in addition to the breaking down of 

 authorities in the region of Belief, the French Eevolution 

 shook the very foundations of national, social, and 

 individual existence i.e., when not only the problem 

 of Knowledge but also the problem of Existence or 

 Eeality was pushed into the foreground. 



If this country for a long time partook of the 

 movement of the Eeformation only so far as Church 

 government was concerned, the reforms of Ritual and 

 of Doctrine following deliberately and tardily, 1 still 

 less did it witness any subversion of the general 

 order of things equal to that which took place at 

 the end of the eighteenth century in France, and 

 which was felt all over the Western Continent of 

 Europe. The waves of this great storm did indeed 

 beat against the shores of this island, but they did 

 little more than create alarm and help to formulate 

 those problems which the industrial and commercial 

 progress of, a country blessed with a settled govern- 

 ment and a national representation brought necessarily 

 to the surface. 



These problems were the problems of wealth in the 

 first instance, of political rights and social organisation 

 later on. The fundamental problem of existence, the 

 problem of Eeality, had indeed been touched by David 

 Hume, but not with a full sense of its enormous and 

 ultimate practical importance ; as he himself affects to 

 admit that a game of backgammon or a good dinner 



1 See above, p. 116. 



