that of Descartes with man.(364) But in truth in one respect
both were united. Each was analytical; each strove to lay down a general
method for investigating the sphere of inquiry which it selected. Both
were reactions against the dogmatic assumptions of former systems; both
assumed the indispensable necessity of an entire revolution in the method
of attaining knowledge. Accordingly, though differing widely in appealing
to the external senses or the internal intuitions respectively, they both
built philosophy in the criticism of first principles. Hence,
independently of any particular corollaries from special parts of their
systems, the influence of their spirit was to beget a critical,
subjective, and analytical study of any topic. When applied to religion,
this is the feature which subsequently characterizes alike the unbelief
and the discussion of the evidences. Difficulties and the answers to
difficulties are found in an appeal to the functions and capacities of the
interpreting mind. This appeal to reason was denominated rationalism in
the seventeenth century, prior to the present application of the term in a
more limited and obnoxious sense. The specific doctrine arrived at by this
process, which allows the existence of a Deity, and of the religion of the
moral conscience, but denies the specific revelation which Christianity
asserts, was called _theism_ or _deism_. (21)

In the period which we have mentioned as marking the first stage of deism,
extending from its commencement to the close of the seventeenth century,
the peculiarity which characterized the inquiry was the political aspect
which it bore. The relation of religion to political toleration(365) gave
occasion for examining the sphere of truth which may form the subject of
political interference.

Two writers of opposite schools are usually regarded as marking the rise
of deism, both of whom belonged to this phase of it, Lord Herbert of
Cherbury, and Hobbes. Both formed their systems in the reign of Charles
I.(366) The one rejected revelation by making religion a matter of
individual intuition, the other by making it a matter of political
convenience.

Lord Herbert,(367) the elder brother of the saintly poet, if looked at as
a philosopher, must be classed with Descartes rather than with Bacon,
though chronology forbids the idea that he can have learned anything from
Descartes. It is probable that while on his early embassy in France he
came under the