yielded far too much to the prevailing principles of the time, and followed too readily the spirit of that age in its wild, rapid, and all-destructive career. To the many elements of internal ferment already existing in France, the imitation of English manners under the Regent, which was soon succeeded by an imitation of English literature and philosophy, added a source of equal danger. For to maintain within certain prescribed limits this English philosophy that reduces everything to the experience of sensation, the French wanted that sense of equilibrium innate in the English, and which their constitution had rendered almost instinctive to them; and by means of which in philosophy, as in their internal government, and in their relations with Foreign states, they can keep within bounds; and with them a philosophy, however unspiritual and ungodly, does not so rapidly rush into a headlong and destructive course, as it did in France and in Europe during the atheistical and revolutionary period of literature and science; for the deadly influence of this spirit was not confined to France--the land of its birth--but spread over every country. This is the important and essential distinction between the philosophy of Locke or of Hume for example, which I before designated as the Protestantism of philosophy, in opposition to the thoroughly revolutionary philosophy of French atheism--for though the former by its opposition to all spiritual ideas is of a negative character, yet most of its partisans and champions contrive to make some sort of capitulation with divine faith, and to preserve a kind of belief in moral feeling. The French philosophy was in fact a new Pagan idolatry of nature, and even the most splendid discoveries of natural science, which might and ought to have pointed to a higher principle, were not contemplated in their true spirit, nor employed to proper advantage, but were even made the instruments of a fanatic hostility towards the Deity. Even among the comparatively better natural philosophers of France, materialism was too generally the basis of their science, and a sensual enthusiasm for nature too much the prevailing tone of their writings.