That subordination of the imagination to reason, which, after the Restoration, became so marked in English thought on intellectual, political, and religious subjects, was continued in the eighteenth century with results which affected the whole current of national life. Before the light of physical science, silent but irresistible in its advances, faded away the remains of dogmatism and superstition. Astrology was forgotten in astronomy; belief in modern miracles and witchcraft ceased to take root in minds conscious of a universe too vast for realization, and governed by laws so regular, that probability could not attach to arbitrary interference by God or the devil. From the broadening of the intellectual horizon finally resulted inestimable benefits; but these benefits were purchased at the price of much temporary evil. If in religion, the rational tendencies prepared the way for the liberal and undogmatic Christianity to come, their effect for many years was to be seen only in scepticism, in a mocking indifference to religion itself, in a contempt of high moral aspirations and sentiments. If in politics, the final effect of these tendencies was to introduce new wisdom into government, they showed for long no other result than the suppression of all the higher qualities of a statesman, the disappearance of every sign of patriotism other than an ignorant hatred of foreign countries, the complete subversion of public spirit by private rapacity.
The prevailing intellectual characteristics are marked, in literature, by the great predominance of prose over poetry. It will be no disparagement to Pope, Prior, Gray, Collins, Akenside, Goldsmith, or Young, to say that they did not attain in poetry what in prose was attained by Swift, Defoe, Steele, Addison, Bolingbroke, Richardson, Fielding, Smollet, Hume, Gibbon, Junius, and Burke; while Goldsmith is as much valued for his prose as for his verse, Addison, Swift, and Johnson more so. It is to these men, and to contemporaries of lesser note, that English literature is indebted for the invention or perfection of prose forms of the highest importance and beauty. Defoe stands pre-eminent among the founders of the newspaper, destined to attain so high a degree of power and utility. Addison, Steele, and Johnson made the essay one of the most attractive and popular forms of literature. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, Horace Walpole, Chesterfield, and Junius brought letter-writing to perfection. Defoe, Addison, Richardson, and Fielding developed the realistic novel. A prosaic and conventional tone pervaded even the poetry of the period. Appreciation of poetry was almost extinguished, Addison, writing of the poets of the past, made no mention of Shakespeare, and found it possible to say of Chaucer: