In this brief review of the triumphs of reason in the nineteenth
century, we have been considering the discoveries of science and
criticism which made the old orthodoxy logically untenable. But the
advance in freedom of thought, the marked difference in the general
attitude of men in all lands towards theological authority to-day from
the attitude of a hundred years ago, cannot altogether be explained by
the power of logic. It is not so much criticism of old ideas as the
appearance of new ideas and interests that changes the views of men at
large. It is not logical demonstrations but new social conceptions that
bring about a general transformation of attitude towards ultimate
problems. Now the idea of the progress of the human race must, I think,
be held largely answerable for this change of attitude. It must, I
think, be held to have operated powerfully as a solvent of theological
beliefs. I have spoken of the teaching of Diderot and his friends that
man's energies should be devoted to making the earth pleasant. A
[227] new ideal was substituted for the old ideal based on theological
propositions. It inspired the English Utilitarian philosophers (Bentham,
James Mill, J. S. Mill, Grote) who preached the greatest happiness of
the greatest number as the supreme object of action and the basis of
morality. This ideal was powerfully reinforced by the doctrine of
historical progress, which was started in France (1750) by Turgot, who
made progress the organic principle of history.
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