ABSTRACT
The End of the eighteenth century found Utilitarianism, if not as a philosophy then as an assumption, in the air in Britain. Rousseau’s religion of enthusiasm made small headway, in that damp island, against the increasing and consolidated belief that utility was the proper test of policy. The mental climate was congenial to the belief. The Deists, the Unitarians and the demi-Unitarians, enemies of clericalism, had done their work in weakening the influence of a morality with supernatural sanctions. Sir Isaac Newton, strongly orthodox in religion, had thereby shown how piety could be allied with the most modern insight into an orderly world, rationally comprehensible. The fanaticism of the seventeenth century had been succeeded by respect for common sense. The classic calm of Addison and Pope was not congenial to “enthusiasm.” The solid prosperity of the century in Britain, the improvement of conditions in France, led to a sophistication and relaxation of manners.
