That there is nothing without us (really) which we call an image or color. That the said image or color is but an apparition unto us of the motion, agitation, or alteration which the object worketh in the brain, or spirits, or some internal substance of the head. That as in visions, so also in conceptions that arise from the other senses, the subject of their inference is not the object but the sentient.” Strange to say, Hobbes was protected from his clerical antagonists by the favor of Charles II, who had the portrait of the philosopher of Malmesbury hung on the walls of his private room at Whitehall. Lord Herbert, of Cherbury (one of the friends of Hobbes) born 1581, died 1648, is remarkable for having written a book “De Veritate,” in favor of natural—and against any necessity for revealed—religion; and yet at the same time pleading a sort of special sign or revelation to himself in favor of its publication. Peter Gassendi, a native of Provence, born 1592, died 1655, was one of the opponents of Descartes and of Lord Herbert, and was an admirer of Hobbes; he advocated the old philosophy of Epicurus, professing to reject “from it everything contrary to Christianity.” “But,” asks Cousin, “how could he succeed in this? Principles, processes, results, everything in Epicurus is sensualism, materialism, Atheism.” Gassendi’s works were characterised by great learning and ability, but being confined to the Latin tongue, and written avowedly with the intent of avoiding any conflict with the church, they gave but little immediate impetus to the great heretical movement. Arnauld charges Gassendi with overturning the doctrine of the immortality of the soul, in his discussion with Descartes, and Leibnitz charges Gassendi with corrupting and injuring the whole system of natural religion by the wavering nature of his opinions. Buckle says: “The rapid increase of heresy in the middle of the seventeenth century is very remarkable, and it greatly aided civilisation in England by encouraging habits of independent thought.” In February 1646, Boyle writes from London: “There are few days pass here, that may not justly be accused of the brewing or broaching of some new opinion. If any man have lost his religion, let him repair to London, and I’ll warrant him he shall find it: I had almost said too, and if any man has a religion, let him but come hither now and he shall go near to lose it.” About 1655, one Isaac La Peyrere wrote two small treatises to prove that the world was peopled before Adam, but being arrested at Brussels, and threatened with the stake, he, to escape the fiery refutation, made a full recantation of his views, and restored to the world its dearly-prized stain of natural depravity, and to Adam his position as the first man. La Peyrere’s forced recantation is almost forgotten, the opinions he recanted are now amongst common truths.