The  materialism  even  of  Hobbes  was  thus  in-
complete. But  no  system  of  materialism  more
complete  than  his  appeared  in  Great  Britian  until
very  recent  times.  When  we  remember  the  moral
condition  of  the  nation  from  the  restoration  of
the  Stuart  dynasty  in  1660  to  the  close  of  the
eighteenth  century,  how  low  the  general  tone  of
spiritual  life  was  throughout  the  whole  period,  how
corrupt  and  profligate  at  certain  dates,  we  can
feel  no  surprise  that  numerous  works  were  pub-
lished in  advocacy  of  materialistic  tenets.  The
remarkable  fact   is   one  which    our   historians  of

F


82  Anti-Theistic  Theories.
literature  and  philosophy  have  not  attempted  to
explain — namely,  that  the  authors  of  none  of  these
works  should  have  been  thorough  materialists.  He
is,  of  course,  a  very  incomplete  materialist  who
admits  the  necessity  of  a  God  to  account  for
matter.  But  English  materialism  throughout  the
whole  period  specified  was  of  this  timid  character.
The  materialism  of  Coward  and  of  Dodwell,  of
:  Hartley  and  of  Priestley,  was  limited  to  the  spirit-
(j  uahty  of  the  soul.  What  materialism  there  was
in  England  in  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth
centuries,  it  must  be  added,  was  triumphantly
answered.  The  refutations  of  materialism  were
not  only  far  more  numerous  than  the  defences  of
it,  but  also,  as  a  rule,  much  abler.  Cudworth  and
More,  Newton  and  Boyle,  Clarke  and  Sherlock
and  Butler,  headed  a  host  of  eminent  men  who
took  the  field  on  the  right  side,  and  drove  the
materialists  from  every  position  which  they  ven-
tured to  take  up.  The  history  of  materialism  in
England  is  the  reverse  of  brilliant.
