And though, in a western nation such as Greece, the
separation of religion from philosophy was too wide to admit of much
parallel in the speculative aspect of free thought, yet in reference to
the critical, many instances of the application of an analogous process to
a national creed may be seen in the examination made of the early
mythology, the attempt to rationalize it by searching for historical data
in it, or to moralize it by allegory.(66) Again, within the sphere of the
Hebrew religion which, though supernaturally suggested, developed in
connexion with human events so as to admit the possibility of the rise of
mental difficulties in the progress of its history, how much hallowed
truth, both theoretical and practical, might be learned from the divine
breathings of pious inquirers, such as the sacred authors of the
seventy-third Psalm, or of the books of Job and Ecclesiastes, which give
expression to painful doubts about Providence, not fully solved by
religion, but which nevertheless faith was willing to leave
unexplained.(67) If in the Oriental systems free thought is seen to
operate on a national creed by adjusting it to new ideas through
philosophical dogmatism; if in the Greek by explaining it away through
scepticism; in the Hebrew it is hushed by the holier logic of the
feelings. The two former illustrate steps in the intellectual progress of
free thought; the last exhibits the moral lesson of resignation and
submission in the soul of the inquirer.

Nor ought this method of comparison to be laid aside even at this point.
It would be requisite, for a full discovery of the intellectual causes
that the generalization should be carried further, and the operations of
free thought watched in reference to other subjects than religion.(68)
Reason in its action, first on Christianity both in Europe and elsewhere,
secondly on Jewish and heathen religions, lastly on any body of truth
which rests on traditional authority,--these would be the scientific steps
necessary for eliminating accidental phenomena, and discovering the real
laws which have operated in this branch of intellectual history. The
suggestion of such a plan of study, though obviously too large to be here
pursued, may offer matter of thought to reflective minds, and may at least
help to raise the subject out of the narrow sphere to which it is usually
supposed to belong. The result of the survey would confirm the view of the
struggle now about to be given