CHAPTER IV.

AN EXAMINATION OF THE SCOTCH INTELLECT DURING THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.

The rest of the Volume will be occupied with a still closer investigation of the double paradox presented by the history of Scotland; namely, 1st, that the same people should be liberal in politics, and illiberal in religion; and, 2nd, that the free and sceptical literature which they produced in the eighteenth century, should have been unable to lessen their religious illiberality 191

Their religious illiberality was the result of the immense power possessed by their clergy in the seventeenth century. The causes of that power will be examined in the present