sion with which Butler
formulates small points of detail.

His great work, _The Analogy of Religion, Natural and Revealed, to the
Course and Constitution of Nature_, cannot be adequately appreciated unless
taken in connexion with the circumstances of the period at which it
appeared. It was intended as a defence against the great tide of deistical
speculation (see DEISM), which in the apprehension of many good men seemed
likely to sweep away the restraints of religion and make way for a general
reign of licence. Butler did not enter the lists in the ordinary way. Most
of the literature evoked by the controversy on either side was devoted to
rebutting the attack of some individual opponent. Thus it was Bentley
versus Collins, Sherlock versus Woolston, Law versus Tindal. The _Analogy_,
on the contrary, did not directly refer to the deists at all, and yet it
worked more havoc with their position than all the other books put
together, and remains practically the one surviving landmark of the whole
dispute. Its central motive is to prove that all the objections raised
against revealed or supernatural religion apply with equal force to the
whole constitution of nature, and that the general analogy between the
principles of divine government, as set forth by the biblical revelation,
and those observable in the course of nature, leads us to the warrantable
conclusion that there is one Author of both. Without altogether eschewing
Samuel Clarke's _a priori_ system, Butler relies mainly on the inductive
method, not professing to give an absolute demonstration so much as a
probable proof. And everything is brought into closest relation with "that
which is the foundation of all our hopes and of all our fears; all our
hopes and fears which are of any consideration; I mean a Future Life."

Butler is a typical instance of the English philosophical mind. He will
admit no speculative theory of things. To him the universe is no
realization of intelligence, which is to be deciphered by human thought; it
is a constitution or system, made up of individual facts, through which we
thread our way slowly and inductively. Complete knowledge is impossible;
nay, what we call knowledge of any part of the system is inherently
imperfect. "We cannot have a thorough knowledge of any part without knowing
the whole." So far as experience goes, "to us probability is the very guide
of life." Reason is certainly to be accepted; it is pur natural light, and
th