Once the foundations of Divine Right had been destroyed by Locke, the basis of passionate controversy was absent.

The theory of a social contract never produced in England the enthusiasm it evoked in France, for the simple reason that the main objective of Rousseau and his disciples had already been secured there by other weapons.

And this has perhaps given to the eighteenth century an urbaneness from which its predecessor was largely free.

Sermons are perhaps the best test of such a change; and it is a relief to move from the addresses bristling with Suarez and Bellarmine to the noble exhortations of Bishop Butler.

Not until the French Revolution were ultimate dogmas again called into question; and it is about them only that political speculation provokes deep feeling.