ognised its own sentiments in _Obermann_
gave rise to a traditional estimate of the literary value of that book
which is a little exaggerated. Yet it has considerable merit, especially
in the simplicity and directness with which expression is given to a
class of sentiments very likely to find vent in language either
extravagant or affected. Its form is that of a series of letters, dated
from various places, but chiefly from a solitary valley in the Alps in
which the hero lives, meditates, and pursues the occupations of
husbandry on his small estate.

CHAPTER VI.

PHILOSOPHERS.

[Sidenote: The philosophe movement.]

The entire literary and intellectual movement of the eighteenth century
is very often called the _philosophe_ movement, and the writers who took
part in it _les philosophes_. The word 'philosopher' is, however, here
used in a sense widely different from its proper and usual one.
_Philosophie_, in the ordinary language of the middle and later
seventeenth century, meant simply freethinking on questions of religion.
This freethinking, of which Saint-Evremond was the most distinguished
representative, involved no revolutionary or even reforming attitude
towards politics or practical affairs of any kind. As however the next
century advanced, the character of French scepticism became altered.
Contact with English Deism gave form and precision to its theological or
anti-theological side. The reading of Locke animated it against
Cartesianism, and the study of English politics excited it against the
irresponsible despotism and the crushing system of ecclesiastical and
aristocratic privilege which made almost the entire burden of government
rest on the shoulders least able to bear it. French 'philosophism' then
became suddenly militant and practical. Toleration and liberty of
speculation in religion, constitutional government in politics, the
equalisation of pressure in taxation, and the removal of privilege,
together with reform in legal procedure, were the objects which it had
most at heart. In merely speculative philosophy, that is to say, in
metaphysics, it was much less active, though it had on the whole a
tendency towards materialism, and by a curious accident it was for the
most part rigidly conservative in literary criticism. But it was eager
in the cultivation of ethics from various points of view, and busy in
the study both of the philosophy of history, which may be said to date
from that period,