lmly of their force, and liberty to determine as their reason
should direct them; the apostles had no qualifications for the task,
being the most artless and illiterate persons living. Dodwell exposes
the absurdity of the Protestant position. To give all men liberty to
judge for themselves and to expect at the same time that they shall be
of the Preacher's mind is such a scheme for unanimity as one would
scarcely imagine any one could be weak enough to devise in speculation
and much less that any could ever be found hardy enough to avow and
propose it to practice. The men of Rome "shall rise up in the judgment
(of all considering persons) against this generation and shall condemn
it; for they invented but the one absurdity of infallibility, and behold
a greater absurdity than infallibility is here."

I have still to speak of the (Third) Earl of Shaftesbury, whose style
has rescued his writings from entire neglect. His special interest was
ethics. While the valuable work of most of the heterodox writers of this
period lay in their destructive criticism of supernatural religion, they
clung, as we have seen, to what was called natural religion-- the belief
in a kind and wise personal God, who created the world, governs it by
natural laws, and desires our happiness. The idea

[149] was derived from ancient philosophers and had been revived by Lord
Herbert of Cherbury in his Latin treatise On Truth (in the reign of
James I). The deists contended that this was a sufficient basis for
morality and that the Christian inducements to good behaviour were
unnecessary. Shaftesbury in his Inquiry concerning Virtue (1699) debated
the question and argued that the scheme of heaven and hell, with the
selfish hopes and fears which they inspire, corrupts morality and that
the only worthy motive for conduct is the beauty of virtue in itself. He
does not even consider deism a necessary assumption for a moral code; he
admits that the opinion of atheists does not undermine ethics. But he
thinks that the belief in a good governor of the universe is a powerful
support to the practice of virtue. He is a thorough optimist, and is
perfectly satisfied with the admirable adaptation of means to ends,
whereby it is the function of one animal to be food for another. He
makes no attempt to reconcile the red claws and teeth of nature with the
beneficence of its powerful artist. "In the main all things are kindly
and well disposed." The atheist might have s