Note 199 — Chapter XVI · BRITISH FREETHOUGHT IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

The weak side of Bolingbroke’s polemic was its inconsistency—a flaw deriving from his character. In the spirit of a partisan debater he threw out at any point any criticism that appeared for the moment plausible; and, having no scientific basis or saving rectitude, would elsewhere take up another and a contradictory position. Careful antagonists could thus discredit him by mere collation of his own utterances.199 But, the enemy being no more consistent than he, his influence was not seriously affected in the world of ordinary readers; and much of his attack on “divines,” on dogmas, and on Old Testament morality must have appealed to many, thus carrying on the discredit of orthodoxy in general. Leland devoted to him an entire volume of his View of the Principal Deistical Writers, and in all bestows more space upon him than on all the others together—a sufficient indication of his vogue.