Note 51 — Chapter XIX · FREETHOUGHT IN THE REMAINING EUROPEAN STATES

6. In Denmark, on the other hand, the stagnation of nearly a hundred years had been ended at the accession of Frederick V in 1746.51 National literature, revivified by Holberg, was further advanced by the establishment of a society of polite learning in 1763; under Frederick’s auspices Danish naturalists and scholars were sent abroad for study; and in particular a literary expedition was sent to Arabia. The European movement of science, in short, had gripped the little kingdom, and the usual intellectual results began to follow, though, as in Catholic Spain, the forces of reaction soon rallied against a movement which had been imposed from above rather than evolved from within.