and general muddling.

V. THE CHURCH

I turn, however, to the profession which was more directly connected
with the intellectual development of the country. The nature of the
church establishment gives the most obvious illustration of the
connection between the intellectual position on the one hand and the
social and political order on the other, though I do not presume to
decide how far either should be regarded as effect and the other as
cause.

What is the church of England? Some people apparently believe that it is
a body possessing and transmitting certain supernatural powers. This
view was in abeyance for the time for excellent reasons, and, true or
false, is no answer to the constitutional question. It does not enable
us to define what was the actual body with which lawyers and politicians
have to deal. The best answer to such questions in ordinary case would
be given by describing the organisation of the body concerned. We could
then say what is the authority which speaks in its name; and what is the
legislature which makes its laws, alters its arrangements, and defines
the terms of membership. The supreme legislature of the church of
England might appear to be parliament. It is the Act of Uniformity which
defines the profession of belief exacted from the clergy; and no
alteration could be made in regard to the rights and duties of the
clergy except by parliamentary authority. The church might therefore be
regarded as simply the religious department of the state. Since 1688,
however, the theory and the practice of toleration had introduced
difficulties. Nonconformity was not by itself punishable though it
exposed a man to certain disqualifications. The state, therefore,
recognised that many of its members might legally belong to other
churches, although it had, as Warburton argued, formed an 'alliance'
with the dominant church. The spirit of toleration was spreading
throughout the century. The old penal laws, due to the struggles of the
seventeenth century, were becoming obsolete in practice and were
gradually being repealed. The Gordon riots of 1780 showed that a
fanatical spirit might still be aroused in a mob which wanted an excuse
for plunder; but the laws were not explicitly defended by reasonable
persons and were being gradually removed by legislation towards the end
of the century. Although, therefore, parliament was kept free from
papists, it could hardly regard church and state as identical, or
co