There was a great and free intellectual movement in England in the eighteenth century--indeed, it was from England that it passed into France; but the English had not that strong natural bent for lucidity which the French had. Its bent was toward other things in preference. Our leading thinkers had not the genius and passion for lucidity which distinguished Voltaire. In their free inquiry they soon found themselves coming into collision with a number of established facts, beliefs, conventions. Thereupon all sorts of practical considerations began to sway them. The danger signal went up, they often stopped short, turned their eyes another way, or drew down a curtain between themselves and the light. "It seems highly probable," said Voltaire, "that nature has made thinking a portion of the brain, as vegetation is a function of trees; that we think by the brain just as we walk by the feet." So our reason, at least, would lead us to conclude, if the theologians did not assure us of the contrary; such, too, was the opinion of Locke, but he did not venture to announce it. The French Revolution came, England grew to abhor France, and was cut off from the Continent, did great things, gained much, but not in lucidity. The Continent was reopened, the century advanced, time and experience brought their lessons, lovers of free and clear thought, such as the late John Stuart Mill, arose among us. But we could not say that they had by any means founded among us the reign of lucidity. Let them consider that movement of which we were hearing so much just now: let them look at the Salvation Army and its operations. They would see numbers, funds, energy, devotedness, excitement, conversions, and a total absence of lucidity. A little lucidity would make the whole movement impossible. That movement took for granted as its basis what was no longer possible or receivable; its adherents proceeded in all they did on the assumption that that basis was perfectly solid, and neither saw that it was not solid, nor ever even thought of asking themselves whether it was solid or not.