REVIEWS 837
thought in the eighteenth century. Eighteenth-century thought, Dr. Patten says, was not a continuation of seventeenth-century ideas, but a new movement. In the seventeenth century the city invaded the country and destroyed sensual customs, the survival of communal days, while in the eighteenth the towns were the places that needed reform. One section moved forward in the seventeenth century, another in the eighteenth. The improvement in agriculture and the elevation of family life are the two marked features of social progress in the last century. Mandeville is cited as the first thinker. In his " Fable of the Bees" he states his thesis — that spending makes trade lively, frugality causes industrial stagnation. Therefore the necessities, vices, imperfections of men are the sources of all the arts, trades, and industries. He emphasizes the contrast between the workers and the leisure class, and^ makes the usefulness of the latter depend upon the need of luxury and vice to maintain trade. This theory was not wholly controverted until Mill proved the usefulness of frugality and the indispensability of capital. Hume, the successor of Mandeville, aims "to give a check to all kinds of superstitious delusions." He asserts that physical con- ditions have no effect on the human mind, that men owe nothing to air, food, or climate. " If we run over the globe or revolve the annals of history, we shall discover everywhere signs of a sympathy or contagion 0/ manners, none of the influence of air or climate," he tells us in his Essay on National Characters. Do we not here find a suggestion of Tarde's theory of imitation ? The third great thinker of the epoch makes human nature the controlling element of his doctrine. In his Wealth of Nations Adam Smith collects all the economic principles which had previously appeared and applies certain laws of human nature to the discussion of economic problems. He emphasizes the advantages of parsimony and condemns the evils of prodigality. It was due to his efforts that political economy became a recognized science.
The advancement in economic and philosophic thought paved the way to the religious awakening of Methodism. Puritans and plagues had disappeared. Religion needed a reinforcement of its claim. Wesley and Whitefield arose as the leaders of the new movement. The Calvinists visualized long-past events, especially the covenant and the assembled host of Israel at the foot of Mount Sinai. Whitefield visualized the future, laying stress on the picture of the last judgment. The failure of Calvinism was due to the ruling principle of predestination, which is incompatible with social progress, and which implies resignation,
