Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from The Skeptical Era in Modern History, or the Infidelity of the Eighteenth Century, the Product of Spiritual Despotism
In pursuance of this aim, I have first attempted to exhibit the fact we are to explain - tha nature and extent of that strange defection of faith that marked the eighteenth cen tury. We, then, consider its causes and first those which are secondary and occasional; such as e. G., the low and relaxed moral tone of the world's mind at the time the epidemic of unbelief set iu - the century and a half of reli gious agonism and arms which preceded the revolution in philosophy inaugurated by Bacon and Des Cartes in physics and metaphysics, and by Luther in the realm of religion and the rise of the idea of wealth to the ascendancy in cabinets of governments, and in general society. Our view is then directed to the Fan: et origo malomm, the great owes or aware of the evil we investigate; viz despotism, despotism both secular and spiritual, but with capacial and portentous preeminence of the latter. Our investigation then, brings us to the geographic focus and centre of the plague z - France. Its position in European civilization its civil and ecclesiastical constitution and history - its court, monarchy, church, literature - these are seen through the malign in?uence of spiritual despotism, directed to the subversion of belief and finally resulting in the organiza tion of a conspiracy and crusade against the faith of the world.
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