chool, was the most characteristic tenet of the school from which
it dissented. All the speculative part of the English literature in the
first half of the eighteenth century is a prolonged discussion as to the
meaning and value of the law of nature, the religion of nature, and the
state of nature. The deist controversy, which occupied every one of the
keenest thinkers of the time, turned essentially upon this problem:
granting that there is an ascertainable and absolutely true religion of
nature, what is its relation to revealed religion? That, for example, is
the question explicitly discussed in Butler's typical book, which gives
the pith of the whole orthodox argument, and the same speculation
suggested the theme of Pope's 'Essay on Man,' which, in its occasional
strength and its many weaknesses, is perhaps the most characteristic,
though far from the most valuable product of the time. The religion of
nature undoubtedly meant something very different with Butler or Pope
from what it would have meant with Wordsworth or Coleridge--something so
different, indeed, that we might at first say that the two creeds had
nothing in common but the name. But we may see from Rousseau that there
was a real and intimate connection. Rousseau's philosophy, in fact, is
taken bodily from the teaching of his English predecessors. His
celebrated profession of faith through the lips of the Vicaire Savoyard,
which delighted Voltaire and profoundly influenced the leaders of the
French Revolution, is in fact the expression of a deism identical with
that of Pope's essay.[18] The political theories of the Social Contract
are founded upon the same base which served Locke and the English
political theorists of 1688; and are applied to sanction the attempt to
remodel existing societies in accordance with what they would have
called the law of nature. It is again perfectly true that Rousseau drew
from his theory consequences which inspired Robespierre, and would have
made Locke's hair stand on end; and that Pope would have been
scandalised at the too open revelation of his religious tendencies. It
is also true that Rousseau's passion was of infinitely greater
importance than his philosophy. But it remains true that the logical
framework into which his theories were fitted came to him straight from
the same school of thought which was dominant in England during the
preceding period. The real change effected by Rousseau was that he
breathed life into t