eginning to die out at the end of this period.
It is often said in explanation that deism or the religion of nature, as
then understood, was too vague and colourless a system to have any
strong vitality. It faded into a few abstract logical propositions which
had no relation to fact, and led to the optimistic formula, 'Whatever
is, is right,' which could in the long-run satisfy no one with any
strong perception of the darker elements of the world and human nature.
This view may be emphasised by the most remarkable writings of the
period. Butler's _Analogy_ (1736) has been regarded by many even of his
strongest opponents as triumphant against the deistical optimism, and
certainly emphasises the side of things to which that optimism is blind.
Hume's _Treatise of Human Nature_, at the end of the period (1739),
uttered the sceptical revolution which destroys the base of the
deistical system. Another writer is notable: William Law's _Serious
Call_ is one of the books which has made a turning-point in many men's
lives. It specially affected Samuel Johnson and John Wesley, and many of
those who sympathised more or less with Wesley's movement. Law was
driven by his sense of the aspects of the rationalist theories to adopt
a different position. He became a follower of Behmen, and his mysticism
ended by repelling the thoroughly practical Wesley, as indeed mysticism
in general seems to be uncongenial to the English mind. Law's position
shows a difficulty which was felt by others. It means that while he
holds that religion must be in the highest sense 'reasonable' it cannot
be (as another author put it) 'founded upon argument.' Faith must be
identified with the inner light, the direct voice of God to man, which
appeals to the soul, and is not built upon syllogisms or allowed to
depend upon the result of historical criticism. This view, I need hardly
say, is opposed to the whole rationalist theory, whether of the deist or
the orthodox variety: it was so opposed that it could find scarcely any
sympathy at the time; and for that reason it indicates one
characteristic of the contemporary thought. To omit the mystical element
is to be cold and unsatisfactory in religious philosophy, and to be
radically prosaic and unpoetical in the sphere of literature. Englishmen
could never become mystics in the technical sense, but they were
beginning to be discontented with the bare logical system of the
religion of nature. They were ready for some ut