IX.] Mr. Buckle's Fallacies. 



/j 



Vanini, and the heresy of Wyclif. It became, as 

 Mr. Buckle remarks, " in physics, the precursor of 

 science ; in politics, of liberty ; and in theology, of 

 toleration." But for the scepticism in his own mind, 

 Luther could not have become the founder of Protes- 

 tantism ; and but for the scepticism already rife in the 

 minds of others, he could have found no followers. 

 We find scepticism dictating the metaphysics of 

 Descartes and the diplomacy of Richelieu. We find 

 it inciting the English to rebellion against the despot- 

 ism of the Stuarts, and striving though vainly, in the 

 wars of the Fronde, to establish political liberty in 

 France. It lay at the foundation of the sensation- 

 alism of Locke and the idealism of Berkeley, and was 

 itself at last organised into an independent system 

 by Hume. It was the opening phase of that negative 

 philosophy which, first receiving definite shape in 

 the deism of Herbert and Bolingbroke, ended in the 

 atheism of Diderot and Helvetius. It was the parent 

 of the transcendentalism of Kant and Fichte, the 

 physio-philosophic vagaries of Schelling and Carus, 

 the absolutism of Hegel, and the pantheism of Feuer- 

 bach. Carried into science, it paved the way for the 

 immortal discoveries of Lavoisier and Bichat. 

 Wielded by Voltaire, it broke down ecclesiastical 

 power in France ; and in the hands of Rousseau 



