ized world, a multitude of searching
interrogations on the most vital subjects; they propounded vast
theories, they awoke new enthusiasms, and uplifted new ideals. In two
directions particularly their influence has been enormous. By their
insistence on the right of free opinion and on the paramount necessity
of free speculation, untrammelled by the fetters of orthodoxy and
tradition, they established once for all as the common property of the
human race that scientific spirit which has had such an immense effect
on modern civilization, and whose full import we are still only just
beginning to understand. And, owing mainly to their efforts also, the
spirit of humanity has come to be an abiding influence in the world. It
was they who, by their relentless exposure of the abuses of the French
judicial system--the scandal of arbitrary imprisonment, the futile
barbarism of torture, the medieval abominations of the penal
code--finally instilled into public opinion a hatred of cruelty and
injustice in all their forms; it was they who denounced the horrors of
the slave-trade; it was they who unceasingly lamented the awful evils of
war. So far as the actual content of their thought was concerned, they
were not great originators. The germs of their most fruitful theories
they found elsewhere--chiefly among the thinkers of England; and, when
they attempted original thinking on their own account, though they were
bold and ingenious, they were apt also to be crude. In some
sciences--political economy, for instance, and psychology--they led the
way, but attained to no lasting achievement. They suffered from the same
faults as Montesquieu in his _Esprit des Lois_. In their love of pure
reason, they relied too often on the swift processes of argument for the
solution of difficult problems, and omitted that patient investigation
of premises upon which the validity of all argument depends. They were
too fond of systems, and those neatly constructed logical theories into
which everything may be fitted admirably--except the facts. In addition,
the lack of psychological insight which was so common in the eighteenth
century tended to narrow their sympathies; and in particular they failed
to realize the beauty and significance of religious and mystical states
of mind. These defects eventually produced a reaction against their
teaching--a reaction during which the true value of their work was for a
time obscured. For that value is not to be looke