eenth-century thought, upon such subjects as
those of immutable morality and the higher faculties of the soul. It was
conspicuous in the attention excited in England, both among admirers and
opponents, by the reveries of Fenelon, Guyon, Bourignon, and other
foreign Quietists. It was a central feature of the animated controversy
maintained by Leslie and others with the Quakers, a community who, at
the beginning of the century, had attained the zenith of their numerical
power. It was further illustrated in writings upon the character of
enthusiasm elicited by the extravagances of the so-called French
Prophets. In its aspect of a discussion upon the supra-sensual faculties
of the soul, it received some additional light from the transcendental
conceptions of Bishop Berkeley's philosophy. In its relation with
mediaeval mysticism on the one hand and with some distinctive aspects of
modern thought on the other, it found an eminent exponent in the
suggestive pages of William Law; with whom must be mentioned his admirer
and imitator, the poet John Byrom. The influence of the Moravians upon
the early Methodists, the controversy of Wesley with Law, the progress
of Methodism and Evangelicalism, the opposition which they met, the
ever-repeated charge of 'enthusiasm,' and the anxiety felt on the other
side to rebut the charge, exhibit the subject under some of its leading
practical aspects. From yet another point of view, a similar reawakening
to the keen perception of other faculties than those of reason and
outward sense is borne witness to in the rise of a new school of
imaginative art and poetry, in livelier sympathy with the more spiritual
side of nature, in eager and often exaggerated ideals of what might be
possible to humanity. Lastly, there remains to notice the very important
influence exercised upon English thought by Coleridge, not only by the
force of his own somewhat mystic temperament, but by his familiarity
with such writers as Kant, Lessing, Schleiermacher, and Schelling, who
had studied far more profoundly than any English philosophers or
theologians, the relation of man's higher understanding to matters not
cognisable by the ordinary powers of human reason.

But it is time to enter somewhat further into detail on some of the
points briefly suggested. Reference was made to the Cambridge
Platonists, for although they belong to the history of the seventeenth
century, some of their opinions bear too directly on the subj