than the physical.  The laws of the human mind will prove to be the ultimate basis of the history of Europe.  These are not to be ascertained by the metaphysical method of studying the inquirer’s own mind alone, but by the historical method of studying many minds.  And this whether the metaphysician belongs to the school which starts by examining the sensations, or to that which starts with the examination of ideas.

Dismissing the metaphysical method, therefore, we must turn to the historical, and study mental phenomena as they appear in the actions of mankind at large.  Mental progress is twofold, moral and intellectual, the first having relation to our duties, the second to our knowledge.  It is a progress not of capacity, but in the circumstances under which capacity comes into play; not of internal power, but of external advantage.  Now, whereas moral truths do not change, intellectual truths are constantly changing, from which we may infer that the progress of society is due, not to the moral knowledge, which is stationary, but to the intellectual knowledge, which is constantly advancing.

The history of any people will become more valuable for ascertaining the laws by which past events were governed in proportion as their movements have been least disturbed by external agencies.  During the last three centuries these conditions have applied to England more than to any other country; since the action of the people has there been the least restricted by government, and has been allowed the greatest freedom of play.  Government intervention is habitually restrictive, and the best legislation has been that which abrogated former restrictive legislation.

Government, religion, and literature are not the causes of civilisation, but its effects.  The higher religion enters only where the mind is intellectually prepared for its acceptance; elsewhere the forms may be adopted, but not the essence, as mediaeval Christianity was merely an adapted paganism.  Similarly, a religion imposed by authority is accepted in its form, but not necessarily in its essence.

In the same way literature is valuable to a country in proportion as the population is capable of criticising and discriminating; that is, as it is intellectually prepared to select and sift the good from the bad.

II.—–­Civilisation in England

It was the revival of the critical or sceptical spirit which remedied the three fundamental errors of the olden time.  Where the spirit of doubt was quenched civilisation continued to be stationary.  Where it was allowed comparatively free play, as in England and France, there has arisen that constantly progressive knowledge to which these two great nations owe their prosperity.

In England its primary and most important consequence is the growth of religious toleration.  From the time of Elizabeth it became impossible to profess religion as the avowed warrant for persecution.  Hooker, at the end of her reign, rests the argument of his “Ecclesiastical Polit” on reason; and this is still more decisively the case with Chillingworth’s “Religion of Protestants” not fifty years later.  The double movement of scepticism had overthrown its controlling authority.