endeavor to separate ethics from theology, and on the other, by the thoughts—­which, it is true, were not perfectly brought out—­that the moral is not founded on a natural social impulse, but on a law of the reason, and first gains a definite criterion in society, and that the interests of the individual are inseparably connected with those of the community.  In any case, the attempt to form a naturalistic theory of the state would be an undertaking deserving of thanks, even if the promulgation of this theory had done no further service than to challenge refutation.

[Footnote 1:  God inscribed the divine or natural law (Do not that to another, etc.) on the heart of man, when he gave him the reason to rule his actions.  The laws of nature are, it is true, not always legally binding (in foro externo), but always and everywhere binding on the conscience (in foro interno).  Justice is the virtue which we can measure by civil laws; love, that which we measure by the law of nature merely.  The ruler ought to govern in accordance with the law of nature.]

%(d) Lord Herbert of Cherbury.%—­Between Bacon (1605, 1620) and Hobbes (1642, 1651) stands Lord Herbert of Cherbury (1581-1648), who, by his work De Veritate (1624),[1] became the founder of deism, that theory of “natural religion,” which, in opposition to the historical dogmatic faith of the Church theology, takes the reason, which is the same in all men, as its basis and morality for its content.  Lord Herbert introduces his philosophy of religion by a theory of knowledge which makes universal consent the highest criterion of truth (summa veritatis norma consensus universalis), and bases knowledge on certain self-evident principles (principia), common to all men in virtue of a natural instinct, which gives safe guidance.  These common notions (notitiae communes) precede all reflective inquiry, as well as all observation and experience, which would be impossible without them.  The most important among them are the religious and ethical maxims of conscience.

[Footnote 1:  Tractatus de Veritate prout distinguitur a Revelatione, a Verisimili, a Possibile, et a False.  Also, De Religione Gentilium, 1645, complete 1663.]

This natural instinct is both an impulse toward truth and a capacity for good or impulse to self-preservation.  The latter extends not only to the individual but to all things with which the individual is connected, to the species, nay, to all the rest of the world, and its final goal is eternal happiness:  all natural capacities are directed toward the highest good or toward God.  The sense for the divine may indeed be lulled to sleep or led astray by our free will, but not eradicated.  To be rational and to be religious are inseparable; it is religion that distinguishes man from the brute, and no people can be found in which it is lacking.  If atheists really exist, they are to be classed with the irrational and the insane.