Protestantism, on the other hand, loosened the conception of authority and of the respect proper for authority, to a degree which has never been realised in the most anarchic movements in France, whose anarchy has ever sprung less from a disrespect for authority as such, than from a passionate and uncompromising resolve in this or that group that the authority shall be in one set of hands and not another. Voltairism has proved itself as little capable as Catholicism of inspiring any piece that may match with Milton’s Areopagitica, the noblest defence that was ever made of the noblest of causes. We know not whether Voltaire ever thought much as to the history and foundation of that freedom of speech, which even in its abuse struck him as so wonderful a circumstance in a country that still preserved a stable and orderly society. He was probably content to admire the phenomenon of a liberty so marvellous, without searching very far for its antecedents. The mere spectacle of such free, vigorous, many-sided, and truly social and public activity of intellect as was visible in England at this time, was in itself enough to fix the gaze of one who was so intensely conscious of his own energy of intellect, and so bitterly rebellious against the system which fastened a gag between his lips. If we would realise the impression of this scene of free speech on Voltaire’s ardent spirit, we need only remember that, when in time he returned to his own country, he had to wait long and use many arts and suffer harassing persecution, before he could publish what he had to say on Newton and Locke, and in other less important respects had to suppress much of what he had most at heart to say. ‘One must disguise at Paris,’ he wrote long after his return, ‘what I could not say too strongly at London;’ and he vaunts his hardihood in upholding Newton against René Descartes, while he confesses that an unfortunate but necessary circumspection forced him to try to make Locke obscure.[29] Judge the light which would come into such a mind as his, when he first saw the discussion and propagation of truth freed from these vile and demoralising affronts. The very conception of truth was a new one, as a goddess not to be shielded behind the shades of hierophantic mystery, but rather to be sought in the free tumult and joyous strife of many voices, there vindicating her own majesty and marking her own children.