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.

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