The typical qualities of dissent became a certain pushful exertion by which the external criteria of salvation could be secured.
Much of the contemporary philosophy, moreover, fits in with this attitude.

From the time of Bacon, the main object of speculation was to disrupt the scholastic teleology.

In the result the State becomes dissolved into a discrete mass of individuals, and the self-interest of each is the starting-point of all inquiry.

Hobbes built his state upon the selfishness of men; even Locke makes the individual enter political life for the benefits that accrue therefrom.

The cynicism of Mandeville, the utilitarianism of Hume, are only bypaths of the same tradition.