Note 7 — Chapter XIV · BRITISH FREETHOUGHT IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY

Like all pioneers, Herbert falls into some inconsistencies on his own part; the most flagrant being his claim to have had a sign from heaven—that is, a private and special revelation—encouraging him to publish his book.7 But his criticism is nonetheless telling and persuasive so far as it goes, and remains valid to this day. Nor do his later and posthumous works8 add to it in essentials, though they do much to construct the deistic case on historical lines. The De religione gentilium in particular is a noteworthy study of pre-Christian religions, apparently motived by doubt or challenge as to his theorem of the universality of the God-idea. It proves only racial universality without agreement; but it is so far a scholarly beginning of rational hierology. The English Dialogue between a Teacher and his Pupil, which seems to have been the first form of the Religio Gentilium,9 is a characteristic expression of his whole way of thought, and was doubtless left unpublished for the prudential reasons which led him to put all his published works in Latin. But the fact that the Latin quotations are translated shows that the book had been planned for publication—a risk which he did wisely to shun. The remarkable thing is that his Latin books were so little debated, the De Veritate being nowhere discussed before Culverwel.10 Baxter in 1672 could say that Herbert, “never having been answered, might be thought unanswerable”;11 and his own “answer” is merely theological.