Let me describe the mental and spiritual condition of New England when Emerson appeared. Calvinism, with its rigorous dogmatism, was slowly dying, and had been succeeded by a calm and somewhat formal rationalism. Locke was still the master in the realm of thought; Addison and Blair in literary expression. In poetry, the school of Pope was engaged in conflict with that of Byron and his contemporaries. Wordsworth had led the way to a deeper view of nature; but Wordsworth could scarcely be called a popular writer. In theology a certain literalism prevailed, and the doctrines of Christianity were inferred from counting and weighing texts on either side. Not the higher reason, with its intuition of eternal ideas, but the analytic understanding, with its logical methods, was considered to be the ruler in the world of thought. There was more of culture than of intellectual life, more of good habits than of moral enthusiasm. Religion had become very much of an external institution. Christianity consisted in holding rational or orthodox opinions, going regularly to church, and listening every Sunday to a certain number of prayers, hymns, and sermons. These sermons, with some striking exceptions, were rather tame and mechanical. In Boston, it is true, Buckminster had appeared,--that soul of flame which soon wore to decay its weak body. The consummate orator Edward Everett had followed him in Brattle Square pulpit. Above all, Channing had looked, with a new spiritual insight, into the truths of religion and morality. But still the mechanical treatment prevailed in a majority of the churches of New England, and was considered, on the whole, to be the wisest and safest method. There was an unwritten creed of morals, literature, and social thought to which all were expected to conform. There was little originality and much repetition. On all subjects there were certain formulas which it was considered proper to repeat. "Thou art a blessed fellow," says one of Shakespeare's characters, "to think as other people think. Not a man's thought in the world keeps the roadway better than thine." The thought of New England kept the roadway. Of course, at all times a large part of the belief of the community is derived from memory, custom, and imitation; but in those days, if I remember them aright, it was regarded as a kind of duty to think as every one else thought; a sort of delinquency, or weakness, to differ from the majority.