The ideas which his writings contributed to deist speculation are two; viz., the examination of the universal principles of religion, and the appeal to an internal illuminating influence superior to revelation, “the inward light,” as the test of religious truth. This was a phrase not uncommon in the seventeenth century. It was used by the Puritans to mark the appeal to the spiritual instincts, the heaven-taught feelings; and later by mystics, like the founder of the Quakers, to imply an appeal to an internal sense.(372) But in Herbert it differs from these in being universal, not restricted to a few persons, and in being intellectual rather than emotional or spiritual. It was not analysed so as to separate intuitional from reflective elements, and seems to have been analogous to Descartes’ ultimate appeal to the natural reason, the self-evidencing force of the mental axioms.(373) If it was the anxiety to find certainty in controversies concerning theological dogmas, which suggested Herbert’s inquiries, it was the struggle of ecclesiastical parties in connexion with political movements which excited those of Hobbes.(374) In his philosophical views he belonged to an opposite school to Herbert. A disciple of Bacon, he was the first to apply his master’s method to morals, and to place the basis of ethical and political obligation in experience; and in the application of these philosophical principles to religion, he also represented the contrary tendency to Herbert, state interference in contradistinction from private liberty, political religion as opposed to personal. The contest of individualism against multitudinism is the parallel in politics to that of private judgment against authority in religion. While some of the Puritans were urging unlimited license in the matter of religion, Hobbes wrote to prove the necessity of state control, and the importance of a fulcrum on which individual opinion might repose, external to itself; and referring the development of society to the necessity for restraining the natural selfishness of man, and resolving right into expedience as embodied in the sovereign head, he ended with crushing the rights of the individual spirit, and defending absolute government. The effect of the application of such a sensational and materialist theory to religion will be anticipated. He traced(375) the genesis of it in the individual, and its expression in society; finding the origin of it in selfish fear of the supernatural. The same reason which led him to assign supremacy to government in other departments induced him to give it supreme control over religion. Society being the check on man’s selfishness, and supreme, deciding all questions on grounds of general expedience; the authority of the commonwealth became the authority of the church.(376) Though he had occasion to discuss revelation and the canon(377) as a rule of faith, yet it is hard to fix on any point that was actual unbelief.