Locke’s system of metaphysics had but one effect on the minds of Englishmen; it dulled their intuitive originality. Even when it parched the sources of philosophical thought, it could not destroy the deeply rooted religious sentiment of the nation. But this system of metaphysics, which was received by all Europe, Germany excepted, has been one of the chief causes of the spread of immorality; in the philosophy of the materialist men found the precepts which give sanction to every immoral practice. _Printed by_ BALLANTYNE, HANSON & CO. _Edinburgh and London_ Transcriber’s Note: This book was written in a period when many words had not become standardized in their spelling. Words may have multiple spelling variations or inconsistent hyphenation in the text. These have been left unchanged unless indicated below. Dialect, obsolete and alternative spellings were left unchanged. Words and phrases in italics are surrounded by underscores, _like this_. Footnotes were renumbered sequentially and were moved to the end of the chapter. Obvious printing errors, such as backwards, upside down, or partially printed letters and punctuation, were corrected. Final stops missing at the end of sentences and abbreviations were added. Spaces were added between run together words. Accents were adjusted where needed. The following were changed: delighful to delightful, line 2754 benefical to beneficial, line 3582 Thackery to Thackeray, Footnote [12] carollary to corollary, line 4531 precedure to procedure, line 6267 titilated to titillated, line 7550 De Foe to Defoe, line 7565 hypocondriac to hypochondriac, line 8140 incalulable to incalculable, line 12262