eighteenth century is the battle-ground on which is waged the contest between the forces of ecclesiasticism, intolerance, social and institutional tyranny on the one hand, and the spirit of toleration, personal freedom, and untrammeled inquiry on the other. The contest continues to our day, but in a less ferocious spirit than a century ago. Both in religion and science the modern age is relatively free.

The contest of the free mind with ecclesiasticism and obscurantism was more acute in France than in England; mediaeval institutions and a decayed state church, inextricably involved, had in France lingered on into a new age. Though anachronisms, these had power to resist the slow pressure of public opinion, for they constituted vested interests which involved king, nobles, and the clergy. England, despite its political corruption and its conservatism, was a freer and more democratic country. The English church of the 18th century, spiritually moribund as it was, had neither the power nor the desire to persecute its enemies as did the church in France. Non-conformists and Catholics suffered various disabilities, but the days of torture were past; whereas in France, in the middle of the century, a man was broken on the wheel for failing to do reverence to a religious procession passing in the street. In England, freedom of religious thought grew in the very church itself. Provided a clergyman outwardly conformed he might in private believe much as he chose. Hypocritical conformity was no doubt an evil, but free scientific and philosophic inquiry flourished. In France the great reformers, headed by Voltaire, attacked first the French church as the chief enemy to all social, scientific, and moral progress.

The attack upon the bigoted ecclesiasticism of the French church broadened inevitably and soon to a criti

cism of the government, of law, of social institutions, and the moral code. Social conditions in France were intolerable, many being survivals of feudalism and inadequate to the new age. And if conditions were bad it was inevitable that men, influenced by these conditions, should also be bad. The new psychology of Locke and Hume declared that the mind of man at birth was a blank tablet. He was the product of the influences brought to play upon him. If these were good he was good; if evil, he was evil. The new psychology swept away all innate ideas-God, duty, obedience, morality. These ideas were declared to be the result of education and environment. Social institutions and customs, traditional practices and beliefs, must therefore be altered if man was to be changed. Man was potentially good. Educate him properly, imbue him with desirable ideas and ideals and he would become a good citizen. Modern theories of education have their origin in this age. The importance of education is stressed by all the reformers of the time, but most notably by Rousseau, whose Emile was a work of far-reaching influence.

Formal education, schooling, is however but a small part of that larger education which is coextensive with life itself. Chiefly formative are the institutions of society. Against these, variously, the reformers directed their artillery-against aristocracy, priestcraft, bad laws, and the institution of kingship. If a nobility serves no useful purpose it can be destroyed. Churches and ecclesiastical forms are of human contriving and can be altered. Kings are not kings by divine right but have been set over men by men's consent. Montesquieu endeavored to show that the very laws themselves are the product of local conditions, physiographical mainly, and that as conditions vary, so too laws will vary. Rousseau in his famous Social Contract, which develops ideas

derived from Hobbes and Locke, sought to show that in the beginning of civil society men had entered into a formal social compact wherein for services rendered by a king they surrendered certain natural rights. It was a naïve theory without any historical foundation, but it was none the less potent. If kings failed to render the services expected of them it became, then, the people's right, in Rousseau's belief, to rescind the original contract and depose the king. The theory of divine right was exploded. Political power it was held resides ultimately in the people, however delegated by them for their convenience. This power may be reassumed at will. Upon this theory is based the democratic idea of political government.

Such ideas as these which have been sketched are obviously subversive of traditional authority. Helvetius went a step farther and examined the bases of morality. Moral education had hitherto lain in the hands of the church; moral practices had received ecclesiastical sanction. Helvetius sought a different sanction, one to be scrutinized by reason and subjected to the tests of experience. He declared that conduct which makes for the well-being of the greater number is moral; that which diminishes this well-being is immoral. What if the individual's personal desires conflict with the interests of his fellows; what, then, is to direct him to the proper course? On this point Helvetius is not satisfactory. Seemingly, in some fashion not clearly demonstrable, the happiness of the individual must coincide with that of the mass, and he must perceive this community of ends. If he does not, his education is defective. If a proper education be postulated, the individual will be always glad to sacrifice himself and his selfish interests to the common good. We are back again to the old thesis, the need of political and social reform that the

individual may grow up amid the proper influences. Change the system and everything follows. But when it is asked why immoral persons, the product of a vicious system, should take it upon themselves to reform the institutions of society we encounter again a moral dilemma. Helvetius is sure only that the first step and subsequent steps will be taken. The vicious legislator will perceive the error of his ways and pass good laws. Society will reform itself without the aid of the decalogue or the threats and admonitions of priests. Whether such an ethical theory is sound or no, need not, for the moment, concern us. The important point, historically, is that the hold of the Church upon mankind was weakened in a vital place; questions of right and wrong were henceforth increasingly to be decided upon the grounds of social expediency. The Utilitarianism of Jeremy Bentham and his disciples, James and Stuart Mill, is based upon the teachings of Helvetius. And to Utilitarianism, during the first third of the century, is due much of the moral impetus for needed social reforms in England.

To us of today it seems odd that an encyclopedia should have been one of the chief instruments of reform in the hands of the French philosophers. Yet such in effect was the work edited by Diderot and published in many volumes over a period of years. Its staff of contributors numbered most of the great scholars of France in all departments of human knowledge, men impatient of the restrictions imposed by church and state upon the inquiring mind. Its survey of man's achievements in the arts and sciences revealed the extent of human knowledge and the infinite possibilities of science. It was a work conceived and executed in the scientific spirit, and while it dared not openly attack church and state it undermined the authority of both by a thousand

subtle indirections. It fostered the critical mind and pinned its faith to human reason freed from traditional bonds. Church and State recognized the Encyclopedia as an insidious enemy, but despite the difficulties placed in the path of its publication it was completed, printed, and widely read. Its influence in encouraging scientific inquiry and the criticism of traditional faiths and institutions is indeterminate but was undoubtedly vast.

All the radical doctrines of the revolutionary French philosophy are set forth in Holbach's System of Nature, a work of far-reaching influence, not only in France but in England. The doctrine of Necessity, "Divine Necessity" as radicals apostrophized it, is there enunciated without qualification or fear. That such a book could have been published and its author go unscathed is proof that earlier attacks upon the Church and State had been effective. The hand of authority had been weakened. Holbach boldly preaches a mechanistic philosophy in which there is no place for God. God is no more than a name, the first cause in an unbroken chain of causes. Speculation as to the nature of this cause is fruitless; it is by the very nature of man's mind forever unknowable. Unalterable law is the rule of life, and man, as a part of nature, can be no other than he is. Every act is predetermined by causes beyond his control and freewill is a meaningless term coined by theologians. follows, therefore, that no man should be punished for unsocial conduct. The criminal, like the good man, is the product of destiny. But society, for its protection, must seek to reform the criminal and show him the error of his ways, substituting social for anti-social stimuli and thus determining conduct. There is a fallacy concealed in this argument, as, analogously, in the theory of morals which Helvetius formulated. It is hard to see how in a deterministic universe men can ever be other

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