too, had already known how to fill up all the rubrics with excellent works.  And thus it ever went on.  Each year the collection was more considerable, but every year one work pushed another out of the place in which it had hitherto shone.  We now possessed, if not Homers, yet Virgils and Miltons; if not a Pindar, yet a Horace; of Theocrituses there was no lack:  and thus they weighed themselves by comparisons from without; whilst the mass of poetical works always increased, so that at last there could be a comparison from within.

Now though matters of taste stood on a very uncertain footing, there could be no dispute but that, within the Protestant part of Germany and of Switzerland, what is generally called common sense began to stir briskly at that epoch.  The scholastic philosophy—­which always has the merit of propounding according to received axioms, in a favorite order, and under fixed rubrics, every thing about which man can at all inquire--had, by the frequent darkness and apparent uselessness of its subject-matter, by its unseasonable application of a method in itself respectable, and by its too great extension over so many subjects, made itself foreign to the mass, unpalatable, and at last superfluous.  Many a one became convinced that nature had endowed him with as great a portion of good and straightforward sense as, perchance, he required to form such a clear notion of objects that he could manage them and turn them to his own profit, and that of others, without laboriously troubling himself about the most universal problems, and inquiring how the most remote things which do not particularly affect us may hang together.  Men made the trial, opened their eyes, looked straight before them, observant, industrious, active, and believed, that, when one judges and acts correctly in one’s own circle, one may well presume to speak of other things also, which lie at a greater distance.

In accordance with such a notion, every one was now entitled, not only to philosophize, but also by degrees to consider himself a philosopher.  Philosophy, therefore, was more or less sound, and practised common sense, which ventured to enter upon the universal, and to decide upon inner and outer experiences.  A clear-sighted acuteness and an especial moderation, while the middle path and fairness to all opinions was held to be right, procured respect and confidence for writings and oral statements of the sort; and thus at last philosophers were found in all the faculties,—­nay, in all classes and trades.

In this way the theologians could not help inclining to what is called natural religion; and, when the discussion was how far the light of nature may suffice to advance us in the knowledge of God and the improving and ennobling of ourselves, they commonly ventured to decide in its favor without much scruple.  According to the same principle of moderation, they then granted equal rights to all positive religions, by which they all became alike indifferent and uncertain.  For the rest, they let every thing stand; and since the Bible is so full of matter, that, more than any other book, it offers material for reflection and opportunity for meditation on human affairs, it could still, as before, be always laid as the foundation of all sermons and other religious treatises.