Reformation to the furthest possible point, and not only the
desire of completing the Reformation, but that of shaking off
the manifold evils of the existing state of things, both
political and moral. Yet it is remarkable that the spirit of
intellectual movement stood as it were hesitating which party
it ought to join: and as the contest went on, it seemed rather
to incline to that party which was most opposed to the
political movement. This is a point in the state of English
party in the seventeenth century which is well worth noticing,
and we must endeavour to comprehend it.

"We might think, _a priori_, that the spirit of political, and
that of intellectual, and that of religious movement, would go
on together, each favouring and encouraging the other. But the
Spirit of intellectual movement differs from the other two in
this, that it is comparatively one with which the mass of
mankind have little sympathy. Political benefits all men can
appreciate; and all good men, and a great many more than we
might well dare to call good, can appreciate also the value,
not of all, but of some religious truth which to them may seem
all: the way to obtain God's favour and to worship Him aright,
is a thing which great bodies of men can value, and be moved to
the most determined efforts if they fancy that they are
hindered from attaining to it. But intellectual movement in
itself is a thing which few care for. Political truth may be
dear to them, so far as it effects their common well-being; and
religious truth so far as they may think it their duty to learn
it; but truth abstractedly, and because it is truth, which is
the object, I suppose, of the pure intellect, is to the mass of
mankind a thing indifferent. Thus the workings of the intellect