During the last quarter of the Eighteenth Century we notice a division among the moralists. There are attempts to reform the whole presentation of Moral Theology, to make it more systematic under the influence of the prevailing Enlightenment, to make it more Scriptural, or Patristic, or Ascetical; at least to make it different from the unsatisfying thing it was then felt to be. These efforts are
... [Show full abstract] sufficiently obvious, in the topics which concern us, to warrant us grouping the exponents of change together, which we do in Chapter VI.1 In this chapter and the next we deal with men whose works prolong to the end of the century the characteristics with which we are familiar since 1750. The next chapter is devoted exclusively to St. Alphonsus. Here we make three divisions of the lesser authors, roughly according to geographical distribution: first Italy; then Belgium and France; finally the Germanic lands.