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repulsive
Priestley asserted that the soul was but of
flesh and blood; but the more genial
Berkeley, armed with ‘every virtue,’ insisted rather on the certain existence of the intellectual world alone; while from the bench of English bishops the inimitable
Butler pressed the analogies of the material creation itself into the service of spiritual life, and, with the authority of reason, taught the supremacy of conscience.
If
Hume embodied the logical consequences of the sensuous philosophy in the most skilfully constructed system of idealism which the world had ever known, his own countryman,
Reid, in works worthy to teach the youth of a republic, illustrated the active powers of man and the reality of right;
Adam Smith found a criterion of duty in the universal sentiment of mankind; and the
English Dissenter,
Price, enforced the eternal, necessary, and unchanging distinctions of morality.
So philosophic freedom in
England rebuked its own excesses, and, self-balanced and self-restrained, never sought to throw down the august fabric which had for so many centuries stood before
Europe as the citadel of liberty.
The blended respect for aristocracy and for popular rights was impressed upon the courts of law. They were charged with the protection of every individual without distinction, securing to the accused a trial by sworn men, who were taken from among his peers, and held their office for but one short term of service.
And especially the judges watched over the personal liberty of every Englishman, with power on the instant to set free any one illegally imprisoned, even though in custody by the king's express command.
At the same time the judiciary, with a reputation
