Page:History of the Literature of the Scandinavian North.djvu/223



HE struggle which in the latter half of the eighteenth century was carried on throughout Europe between free thought and the old orthodoxy, and which finally led to a compromise between the contending parties under the designation of rationalism, also left distinct traces in the Danish religious and philosophical literature of that period. Religion had gotten in a bad way, for after the Reformation every free movement had been suppressed, and, as a consequence, all faith had gradually dwindled into empty formalities or degenerated into a rigorous pietism. Hence, when free thought, which was essentially hostile to Christianity, invaded Denmark, it necessarily caused great fermentation. After so long a servitude the spirits of men seized with eagerness the new, dazzling, though hollow, tenets of the foreign philosophers, and the literature was soon filled with mockery and blasphemy to an extent and in a manner so frivolous that Holberg, although he was himself tolerably liberal in his religious views, and although he had contributed his share toward bringing about this movement, could not have dreamed that only a few decades after his death such liberal ideas should gain admittance among a people whom he had found wrapped in profound slumber when he began his work. One of the most prominent freethinkers was (1769-1823), editor of the journal "Jesus og Fornuften," while the most eminent representa-