A SHORT HISTORY
OF
FREETHOUGHT
ANCIENT AND MODERN
BY
JOHN M. ROBERTSON
THIRD EDITION, REVISED AND EXPANDED
IN TWO VOLUMES
Vol. I
(ISSUED FOR THE RATIONALIST PRESS ASSOCIATION, LIMITED)
London:
WATTS & CO.,
JOHNSON'S COURT, FLEET STREET, E.C.
1915
TO
SYDNEY ANSELL GIMSON
CONTENTS
VOLUME I
PAGE
Preface xi
Chap. I--Introductory
§ 1. Origin and Meaning of the word Freethought 1
§ 2. Previous histories 10
§ 3. The Psychology of Freethinking 15
Chap. II--Primitive Freethinking 22
Chap. III--Progress under Ancient Religions
§ 1. Early Association and Competition of Cults 44
§ 2. The Process in India 48
§ 3. Mesopotamia 61
§ 4. Ancient Persia 65
§ 5. Egypt 69
§ 6. Phoenicia 78
§ 7. Ancient China 82
§ 8. Mexico and Peru 88
§ 9. The Common Forces of Degeneration 91
Chap. IV--Relative Freethought in Israel
§ 1. The Early Hebrews 97
§ 2. The manipulated prophetic literature 104
§ 3. The Post-Exilic Literature 109
Chap. V--Freethought in Greece 120
§ 1. Beginnings of Ionic Culture 123
§ 2. Homer, Stesichoros, Pindar, and Æschylus 126
§ 3. The Culture-Conditions 134
§ 4. From Thales to the Eleatic School 136
§ 5. Pythagoras and Magna Graecia 148
§ 6. Anaxagoras, Perikles, and Aspasia 152
§ 7. From Demokritos to Euripides 157
§ 8. Sokrates, Plato, and Aristotle 168
§ 9. Post-Alexandrian Greece: Ephoros, Pyrrho,
Zeno, Epicurus, Theodorus, Diagoras, Stilpo,
Bion, Strato, Evêmeros, Carneades, Clitomachos;
The Sciences; Advance and Decline of Astronomy;
Lucian, Sextus Empiricus, Polybius, Strabo;
Summary 180
Chap. VI--Freethought in ancient Rome
§ 1. Culture Beginnings, to Ennius and the Greeks 194
§ 2. Lucretius, Cicero, Cæsar 201
§ 3. Decline under the Empire 207
§ 4. The higher Pagan ethics 215
Chap. VII--Ancient Christianity and its Opponents
§ 1. Freethought in the Gospels: contradictory
forces 218
§ 2. The Epistles: their anti-rationalism 224
§ 3. Anti-pagan rationalism. The Gnostics 224
§ 4. Rationalistic heresy. Arius. Pelagius.
Jovinian. Aerius. Vigilantius. The religious
wars 229
§ 5. Anti-Christian thought: its decline. Celsus.
Last lights of critical thought. Macrobius.
Theodore. Photinus. The expulsion of science.
The appropriation of pagan endowments 235
§ 6. The intellectual and moral decadence. Boethius 243
Chap. VIII--Freethought under Islam
§ 1. Mohammed and his contemporaries.
Early "Zendekism" 248
§ 2. The Influence of the Koran 252
§ 3. Saracen freethought in the East. The
Motazilites. The Spread of Culture.
Intellectual Collapse 253
§ 4. Al-Ma'arri and Omar Khayyám. Sufîism 261
§ 5. Arab Philosophy and Moorish freethought.
Avempace. Abubacer. Averroës. Ibn Khaldun 266
§ 6. Rationalism in later Islam. Sufîism. Bâbism in
contemporary Persia. Freethinking in Mohammedan
India and Africa 272
Chap. IX--Christendom in the Middle Ages 277
§ 1. Heresy in Byzantium. Iconoclasm. Leo. Photius.
Michael. The early Paulicians 277
§ 2. Critical Heresy in the West. Vergilius.
Claudius. Agobard. John Scotus. The case of
Gottschalk. Berengar. Roscelin. Nominalism and
Realism. Heresy in Florence and in France 282
§ 3. Popular Anti-Clerical Heresy. The Paulicians
(Cathari) in Western Europe: their anticipation
of Protestantism. Abuses of the Church and
papacy. Vogue of anti-clerical heresy. Peter
de Brueys. Eudo. Paterini. Waldenses 291
§ 4. Heresy in Southern France. The crusade against
Albigensian heresy. Arrest of Provençal
civilization: Rise and character of the
Inquisition 299
§ 5. Freethought in the Schools. The problem set to
Anselm. Roscelin. Nominalism and Realism.
Testimony of Giraldus Cambrensis: Simon of
Tournay. William of Conches. Abailard. John of
Salisbury 307
§ 6. Saracen and Jewish Influences. Maimonides. Ibn
Ezra. Averroïsts. Amalrich. David of Dinant.
Thomas Aquinas. Unbelief at Paris University.
Suppressive action of the Church. Judicial
torture 315
§ 7. Freethought in Italy. Anti-clericalism in
Florence. Frederick II. Michael Scotus. Dante's
views. Pietro of Abano. Brunetto Latini. Cecco
Stabili. Boccaccio. Petrarch. Averroïsm 322
§ 8. Sects and Orders. Italian developments. The
Brethren of the Free Spirit. Beghards, etc.
Franciscans. Humiliati. Abbot Joachim.
Segarelli and Dolcino 331
§ 9. Thought in Spain. Arab influences. Heresy under
Alfonso X. The first Inquisition. Arnaldo of
Villanueva. Enrique IV. Pedro do Osma. The New
Inquisition. The causes of Spanish evolution 337
§ 10. Thought in England. Roger Bacon. Chaucer.
Items in Piers Ploughman. Lollardry. Wiclif 342
§ 11. Thought in France. François de Rues. Jean de
Meung. Reynard the Fox. Paris university. The
sects. The Templars. William of Occam. Marsiglio.
Pierre Aureol. Nominalism and Realism. "Double
truth." Unbelief in the Paris schools 351
§ 12. Thought in the Teutonic Countries. The
Minnesingers. Walter der Vogelweide. Master
Eckhart. Sects. The Imitatio Christi 361
Chap. X--Freethought in the Renaissance
§ 1. The Italian Evolution. Saracen Sources.
Anti-clericalism. Discredit of the Church.
Lorenzo Valla. Masuccio. Pulci. Executions
for blasphemy. Averroïsm. Nifo. Unbelief at
Rome. Leonardo da Vinci. Platonism. Pico della
Mirandola. Machiavelli. Guicciardini. Belief
in witchcraft. Pomponazzi. Pomponio Leto. The
survival of Averroïsm. Jewish freethought 365
§ 2. The French Evolution. Desperiers. Rabelais.
Dolet. The Vaudois massacres. Unbelieving
Churchmen. Marguerite of Navarre. Ronsard.
Bodin. Vallée. Estienne. Pleas for tolerance.
Revival of Stoicism 379
§ 3. The English Evolution. Reginald Pecock. Duke
Humphrey. Unbelief in immortality 393
§ 4. The Remaining European Countries. Nicolaus of
Cusa. Hermann van Ryswyck. Astrology and
science. Summary 398
Chap. XI--The Reformation Politically Considered
§ 1. The German Conditions. The New Learning.
Economic Causation 403
§ 2. The Problem in Italy, Spain, and the
Netherlands. Savonarola. Catholic reaction.
The New Inquisition. Heresy in Italy. Its
suppression. The Index Expurgatorius. Italian
and northern "character" 407
§ 3. The Hussite Failure in Bohemia. Early
anti-clericalism. Militz and his school. Huss
and Jerome. The Taborite wars. Helchitsky 415
§ 4. Anti-Papalism in Hungary. Early
anti-clericalism. Rapid success of the
Reformation. Its decline. New heresy.
Socinianism. Biandrata. Davides. Recovery
of the Church 419
§ 5. Protestantism in Poland. Early anti-clericalism.
Inroad of Protestantism. Growth of Unitarianism.
Goniondzki. Pauli. Catholic reaction 422
§ 6. The Struggle in France. Attitude of King
Francis. Economic issues. Pre-Lutheran
Protestantism. Persecution. Berquin. Protestant
violences. Fortunes of the cause in France 427
§ 7. The Political Process in Britain. England not
specially anti-papal. The causation. Henry's
divorce. Spoliation 431
Chap. XII--The Reformation and Freethought
§ 1. Germany and Switzerland. Mutianus. Crotus.
Bebel. Rise of Unitarianism. Luther and
Melanchthon. Their anti-democratic politics.
Their dogmatism. Zwingli. Calvin and his
victims. Gruet. The Libertini. Servetus.
Gripaldi. Calvin's polity. Ochino. Anthoine.
Moral failure of Protestantism 434
§ 2. England. Henry and Wolsey. Advanced heresy.
Persecution. Sir Thomas More 458
§ 3. The Netherlands. Calvinism and Arminianism.
Reaction towards Catholicism. Barneveldt.
Grotius 461
§ 4. Conclusion. The intellectual failure. Indirect
gains to freedom 464
Chap. XIII.--The Rise of Modern Freethought
§ 1. The Italian Influence. Deism. Unitarianism.
Latitudinarianism. Aconzio. Nizolio. Pereira 466
§ 2. Spain. Huarte 470
§ 3. France. Treatises against atheism: De Mornay.
New skepticism: Sanchez. Montaigne. Charron.
The Satyre-Menippée. Garasse on the Beaux
Esprits. Mersenne's attack 473
PREFACE
This, the third edition, represents a considerable expansion of the
second (1906), which in its turn was a considerable expansion of the
first (1899). The book now somewhat approximates, in point of fullness,
to the modest ideal aimed at. Anything much fuller would cease to be a
"Short History."
The process of revision, carried on since the last issue, has,
I hope, meant some further advance towards correctness, and some
improvement in arrangement--a particularly difficult matter in such
a book. As before, the many critical excursus have been so printed
that they may be recognized and skipped by those readers who care
to follow only the narrative. The chapter on the nineteenth century,
though much expanded, like those on the eighteenth, remains, I fear,
open to objection on the score of scantiness. I can only plead that
the ample and excellent work of Mr. A. W. Benn has now substantially
met the need for a fuller survey of that period.
It is fitting that I should acknowledge the generous critical
reception given by most reviewers to the previous editions of a
book which, breaking as it did new ground, lacked the gain from
previous example that accrues to most historical writing. My many
debts to historians of culture are, I trust, indicated in the notes;
but I have to repeat my former acknowledgments as to the Biographical
Dictionary of Freethinkers of my dead friend, J. M. Wheeler, inasmuch
as the aid I have had from his manifold research does not thus appear
on the surface.
It remains to add my thanks to a number of friendly correspondents
who have assisted me by pointing out shortcomings and errors. Further
assistance of the same kind will be gratefully welcomed. It is still
my hope that the book may help some more leisured student in the
construction of a more massive record of the development of rational
thought on the side of human life with which it deals.
An apology is perhaps due to the purchasers of the second edition,
which is now superseded by a fuller record. I can but plead that I
have been unable otherwise to serve their need; and express a hope
that the low price of the present edition will be a compensation.
J. M. R.
September, 1914.
A SHORT HISTORY OF FREETHOUGHT
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTORY
§ 1. ORIGIN AND MEANING OF THE WORD
The words "freethinking" and "freethinker" first appear in English
literature about the end of the seventeenth century, and seem to
have originated there and then, as we do not find them earlier in
French or in Italian, [1] the only other modern literatures wherein
the phenomena for which the words stand had previously arisen.
The title of "atheist" had been from time immemorial applied to every
shade of serious heresy by the orthodox, as when the early Christians
were so described by the image-adoring polytheists around them; and
in Latin Christendom the term infidelis, translating the apistos
of the New Testament, which primarily applied to Jews and pagans,
[2] was easily extensible, as in the writings of Augustine, to all
who challenged or doubted articles of ordinary Christian belief,
all alike being regarded as consigned to perdition. [3] It is by
this line of descent that the term "infidelity," applied to doubt
on such doctrines as that of the future state, comes up in England
in the fifteenth century. [4] It implied no systematic or critical
thinking. The label of "deist," presumably self-applied by the bearers,
begins to come into use in French about the middle of the sixteenth
century; [5] and that of "naturalist," also presumably chosen by
those who bore it, came into currency about the same time. Lechler
traces the latter term in the Latin form as far back as the MS. of
the Heptaplomeres of Bodin, dated 1588; but it was common before that
date, as De Mornay in the preface to his De la Vérité de la religion
chrétienne (1581) declaims "against the false naturalists (that is
to say, professors of the knowledge of nature and natural things)";
and Montaigne in one of his later essays (1588) has the phrase "nous
autres naturalistes." [6] Apart from these terms, those commonly
used in French in the seventeenth century were bel esprit (sometimes,
though not necessarily, connoting unbelief), esprit fort and libertin,
the latter being used in the sense of a religious doubter by Corneille,
Molière, and Bayle. [7]
It seems to have first come into use as one of the hostile names
for the "Brethren of the Free Spirit," a pantheistic and generally
heretical sect which became prominent in the thirteenth century,
and flourished widely, despite destructive persecution, till the
fifteenth. Their doctrine being antinomian, and their practice
often extravagant, they were accused by Churchmen of licentiousness,
so that in their case the name Libertini had its full latitude of
application. In the sixteenth century the name of Libertines is found
borne, voluntarily or otherwise, by a similar sect, probably springing
from some remnant of the first, but calling themselves Spirituales,
who came into notice in Flanders, were favoured in France by Marguerite
of Navarre, sister of Francis I, and became to some extent associated
with sections of the Reformed Church. They were attacked by Calvin
in the treatise Contre la sects fanatique et furieuse des Libertins
(1544 and 1545). [8] The name of Libertini was not in the sixteenth
century applied by any Genevese writer to any political party; [9]
but by later historians it was in time either fastened on or adopted
by the main body of Calvin's opponents in Geneva, who probably included
some members of the sect or movement in question. They were accused by
him of general depravity, a judgment not at all to be acquiesced in,
in view of the controversial habits of the age; though they probably
included antinomian Christians and libertines in the modern sense,
as well as orthodox lovers of freedom and orderly non-Christians. As
the first Brethren of the Free Spirit, so-called, seem to have
appeared in Italy (where they are supposed to have derived, like
the Waldenses, from the immigrant Paulicians of the Eastern Church),
the name Libertini presumably originated there. But in Renaissance
Italy an unbeliever seems usually to have been called simply ateo,
or infedele, or pagano. "The standing phrase was non aver fede." [10]
In England, before and at the Reformation, both "infidel" and
"faithless" usually had the theological force of "non-Christian." Thus
Tyndale says of the Turks that though they "knowledge one God," yet
they "have erred and been faithless these eight hundred years"; adding
the same of the Jews. [11] Throughout Elizabeth's reign, "infidel"
seems thus to have commonly signified only a "heathen" or Jew or
Mohammedan. Bishop Jewel, for instance, writes that the Anglo-Saxon
invaders of Britain "then were infidels"; [12] and the word appears to
be normally used in that sense, or with a playful force derived from
that, by the divines, poets, and dramatists, including Shakespeare,
as by Milton in his verse. [13] Ben Jonson has the phrase:
I did not expect
To meet an infidel, much less an atheist,
Here in Love's list. [14]
One or two earlier writers, [15] indeed, use "infidel" in the modern
sense; and it was at times so used by early Elizabethans. [16]
But Foxe brackets together "Jews, Turks, or infidels"; [17] and
Hooper, writing in 1547, speaks, like Jewel, of the heathen as
"the infidels." [18] Hooker (1553-1600), in his Fifth Sermon, § 9,
[19] uses the word somewhat indefinitely, but in his margin makes
"Pagans and Infidels" equivalent to "Pagans and Turks." So also,
in the Ecclesiastical Polity, [20] "infidels" means men of another
religion. On the title-page of Reginald Scot's Discoverie of Witchcraft
(1574), on the other hand, we have "the infidelitie of atheists";
but so late as 1600 we find "J. H." [John Healy], the translator of
Augustine's City of God, rendering infideles and homines infideles by
"unbelievers." [21] "Infidelity," in the modern sense, occurs in Sir
T. Browne. [22]
In England, as in the rest of Europe, however, the phenomenon of
freethought had existed, in specific form, long before it could express
itself in propagandist writings, or find any generic name save those of
atheism and infidelity; and the process of naming was as fortuitous
as it generally is in matters of intellectual evolution. Phrases
approximating to "free thought" occur soon after the Restoration. Thus
Glanvill repeatedly writes sympathetically of "free philosophers"
[23] and "free philosophy." [24] In 1667 we find Sprat, the historian
of the Royal Society, describing the activity of that body as having
arisen or taken its special direction through the conviction that in
science, as in warfare, better results had been obtained by a "free
way" than by methods not so describable. [25] As Sprat is careful to
insist, the members of the Royal Society, though looked at askance
by most of the clergy [26] and other pietists, were not as such to be
classed as unbelievers, the leading members being strictly orthodox;
but a certain number seem to have shown scant concern for religion;
[27] and while it was one of the Society's first rules not to debate
any theological question whatever, [28] the intellectual atmosphere of
the time was such that some among those who followed the "free way"
in matters of natural science would be extremely likely to apply it
to more familiar problems. [29] At the same period we find Spinoza
devoting his Tractatus Theologico-Politicus (1670) to the advocacy of
libertas philosophandi; and such a work was bound to have a general
European influence. It was probably, then, a result of such express
assertion of the need and value of freedom in the mental life that
the name "freethinker" came into English use in the last quarter of
the century.
Before "deism" came into English vogue, the names for unbelief,
even deistic, were simply "infidelity" and "atheism"--e.g.,
Bishop Fotherby's Atheomastix (1622), Baxter's Unreasonableness
of Infidelity (1655) and Reasons of the Christian Religion (1667),
passim. Bishop Stillingfleet's Letter to a Deist (1677) appears to
be the first published attack on deism by name. His Origines Sacræ
(1662) deals chiefly with deistic views, but calls unbelievers
in general "atheists." Cudworth, in his True Intellectual System
of the Universe (written 1671, published 1678), does not speak
of deism, attacking only atheism, and was himself suspected of
Socinianism. W. Sherlock, in his Practical Discourse of Religious
Assemblies (2nd ed., 1682), attacks "atheists and infidels," but
says nothing of "deists." That term, first coined, as we have
seen, in French, seems first to have found common currency in
France--e.g., on the title-pages of the apologetic works of Marin
Mersenne, 1623 and 1624. The term "atheist" was often applied at
random at this period; but atheism did exist.
When the orthodox Boyle pushed criticism in physical science under
such a title as The Sceptical Chemist, the principle could not well be
withheld from application to religion; and it lay in the nature of the
case that the name "freethinker," like that of "skeptic," should come
to attach itself specially to those who doubted where doubt was most
resented and most resisted. At length the former term became specific.
In the meantime the word "rationalist," which in English has latterly
tended to become the prevailing name for freethinkers, had made its
appearance, without securing much currency. In a London news-letter
dated October 14, 1646, it is stated, concerning the Presbyterians
and Independents, that "there is a new sect sprung up among them,
and these are the rationalists; and what their reason dictates to
them in Church or State stands for good until they be convinced
with better." [30] On the Continent, the equivalent Latin term
(rationalista) had been applied about the beginning of the century to
the Aristotelian humanists of the Helmstadt school by their opponents,
[31] apparently in the same sense as that in which Bacon used the
term rationales in his Redargutio Philosophiarum--"Rationales autem,
aranearum more, telas ex se conficiunt." Under this title he contrasts
(as spiders spinning webs out of themselves) the mere Aristotelean
speculators, who framed à priori schemes of Nature, with empiricists,
who, "like ants, collect something and use it," preferring to both the
"bees" who should follow the ideal method prescribed by himself. [32]
There is here no allusion to heterodox opinion on religion. [Bishop
Hurst, who (perhaps following the Apophthegms) puts a translation
of Bacon's words, with "rationalists" for rationales, as one of the
mottoes of his History of Rationalism, is thus misleading his readers
as to Bacon's meaning.] In 1661 John Amos Comenius, in his Theologia
Naturalis, applies the name rationalista to the Socinians and deists;
without, however, leading to its general use in that sense. Later
we shall meet with the term in English discussions between 1680 and
1715, applied usually to rationalizing Christians; but as a name
for opponents of orthodox religion it was for the time superseded,
in English, by "freethinker."
In the course of the eighteenth century the term was adopted in other
languages. The first French translation (1714) of Collins's Discourse
of Freethinking is entitled Discours sur la liberté de penser; and the
term "freethinkers" is translated on the title-page by esprit fort,
and in the text by a periphrasis of liberté de penser. Later in the
century, however, we find Voltaire in his correspondence frequently
using the substantive franc-pensant, a translation of the English term
which subsequently gave way to libre penseur. The modern German term
Freigeist, found as early as 1702 in the allusion to "Alten Quäcker
und neuen Frey-Geister" on the title-page of the folio Anabaptisticum
et Enthusiasticum Pantheon, probably derives from the old "Brethren
of the Free Spirit"; while Schöngeist arose as a translation of bel
esprit. In the middle of the eighteenth century Freidenker came into
German use as a translation of the English term.
In a general sense "free thoughts" was a natural expression,
and we have it in Ben Jonson: "Being free master of mine own free
thoughts." [33] But not till about the year 1700 did the phrase
begin to have a special application to religious matters. The
first certain instance thus far noted of the use of the term
"freethinker" is in a letter of Molyneux to Locke, dated April 6,
1697, [34] where Toland is spoken of as a "candid freethinker." In
an earlier letter, dated December 24, 1695, Molyneux speaks of
a certain book on religion as somewhat lacking in "freedom of
thought"; [35] and in Burnet's Letters [36] occurs still earlier
the expression "men ... of freer thoughts." In the New English
Dictionary a citation is given from the title-page of S. Smith's
brochure, The Religious Impostor ... dedicated to Doctor S-l-m-n
and the rest of the new Religious Fraternity of Freethinkers,
near Leather-Sellers' Hall. Printed ... in the first year of
Grace and Freethinking, conjecturally dated 1692. It is thought to
refer to the sect of "Freeseekers" mentioned in Luttrell's Brief
Historical Relation (iii, 56) under date 1693. In that case it is
not unbelievers that are in question. So in Shaftesbury's Inquiry
Concerning Virtue (first ed. 1699) the expression "freethought"
has a general and not a particular sense; [37] and in Baker's
Reflections upon Learning, also published in 1699, in the remark:
"After the way of freethinking had been lai'd open by my Lord
Bacon, it was soon after greedily followed"; [38] the reference
is, of course, to scientific and not to religious thought.
But in Shaftesbury's Essay on the Freedom of Wit and Humour
(1709) the phrases "free-writers" and "a freethought" [39]
have reference to "advanced" opinions, though in his letters to
Ainsworth (May 10, 1707) he had written, "I am glad to find your
love of reason and freethought. Your piety and virtue I know you
will always keep." [40] Compare the Miscellaneous Reflections
(v, 3) in the Characteristics [41] (1711), where the tendency to
force the sense from the general to the special is incidentally
illustrated. Shaftesbury, however, includes the term "free liver"
among the "naturally honest appellations" that have become
opprobrious.
In Swift's Sentiments of a Church of England Man (1708) the
specialized word is found definitely and abusively connoting
religious unbelief: "The atheists, libertines, despisers
of religion--that is to say, all those who usually pass under
the name of freethinkers"; Steele and Addison so use it in the
Tatler in 1709; [42] and Leslie so uses the term in his Truth of
Christianity Demonstrated (1711). The anonymous essay, Réflexions
sur les grands hommes qui sont morts en plaisantant, by Deslandes
(Amsterdam, 1712), is translated in English (1713) as Reflections
on the Death of Free-thinkers, and the translator uses the term
in his prefatory Letter to the Author, beside putting it in the
text (pp. 50, 85, 97, 102, 106, etc.), where the original had
esprit fort.
It was not till 1713, however, that Anthony Collins's Discourse
of Freethinking, occasioned by the Rise and Growth of a Sect called
Freethinkers, gave the word a universal notoriety, and brought it into
established currency in controversy, with the normal significance of
"deist," Collins having entirely repudiated atheism. Even after this
date, and indeed in full conformity with the definition in Collins's
opening sentence, Ambrose Philips took The Freethinker as the title
of a weekly journal (begun in 1718) on the lines of the Spectator,
with no heterodox leaning, [43] the contributors including Boulter,
afterwards Archbishop of Dublin, and the son of Bishop Burnet. But
despite this attempt to keep the word "freethinking" as a name for
simple freedom from prejudice in secular affairs, the tendency to
specialize it as aforesaid was irresistible. As names go, it was on
the whole a good one; and the bitterness with which it was generally
handled on the orthodox side showed that its implicit claim was felt
to be disturbing, though some antagonists of course claimed from the
first that they were as "free" under the law of right reason as any
skeptic. [44] At this time of day the word may be allowed prescriptive
standing, as having no more drawbacks than most other names for schools
of thought or attitudes of mind, and as having been admitted into most
European languages. The question-begging element is not greater in this
than in many other terms of similar intention, such as "rationalism";
and it incurs no such charge of absurdity as lies against the invidious
religious term, "infidelity." The term "infidel" invites "fidel."
A plausible objection may, indeed, arise on the score that such a term
as "freethought" should not be set up by thinkers who almost invariably
reject the term "freewill"--the rationalistic succession having for two
hundred and fifty years been carried on mainly by determinists. But
the issues raised by the two terms are on wholly different planes;
and while in both cases the imperfection of the instrument of language
is apparent, it is not in the present case a cause of psychological
confusion, as it is in the discussion of the nature of will. The
freewill fallacy consists in applying universally to the process
of judgment and preference (which is a process of natural causation
like another) a conception relevant only to human or animal action,
as interfered with or unaffected by extraneous compulsion. To the
processes of nature, organic or inorganic, the concepts "free" and
"bond" are equally irrelevant: a tiger is no more "free" to crave
for grass and recoil from flesh than is water to flow uphill; while,
on the other hand, such "appetites" are not rationally to be described
as forms of bondage. Only as a mode distinguishable from its contrary
can "freedom" be predicated of any procedure, and it is so predicated
of actions; whereas the whole category of volitions is alleged and
denied by the verbal disputants to be "free." Some attempt to save the
case by distinguishing between free and alleged "unfree" volitions;
but the latter are found to be simply cases of choices dictated
by intense need, as in the case of deadly thirst. The difference,
therefore, is only one of degree of impulse, not in the fact of choice.
The term "freewill," therefore, is irrational, as being wholly
irrelevant to the conception of volition. But "freethought," on the
other hand, points to an actual difference in degree of employment of
the faculty of criticism. The proposition is that some men think more
"freely" than others in that they are (a) not terrorized by any veto
on criticism, and (b) not hampered, or less hampered, by ignorant
pre-suppositions. In both cases there is a real discrimination. There
is no allegation that, absolutely speaking, "thought is free" in
the sense of the orthodox formula; on the contrary, it is asserted
that the rationalist's critical course is specifically determined
by his intellectual structure and his preparation, and that it is
sometimes different structure, but more often different preparation,
that determines the anti-critical or counter-critical attitude of the
believer. Change in the preparation, it is contended, will put the
latter in fuller use of his potential resources; his inculcated fear
of doubt and docility of assent being simply acquiescences in vetoes
on his attention to certain matters for reflection--that is to say,
in arbitrary limitations of his action. It is further implied that the
instructed man, other things being equal, is "freer" to think than
the uninstructed, as being less obstructed; but for the purpose of
our history it is sufficient to posit the discriminations above noted.
The essential thing to be realized is the fact that from its earliest
stages humanity has suffered from conventional or traditionary
hindrances to the use of judgment. This holds good even as to the early
play of the simple inventive faculty, all innovations in implements
being met by the inertia of habit; and when men reached the stages
of ritual practice, social construction, and religious doctrine,
the forces of repression became powerful in proportion to the
seriousness of the problem. It is only in modern times that freedom
in these relations has come to be generally regarded as permissible;
and it has always been over questions of religion that the strife
has been keenest.
For practical purposes, then, freethought may be defined as a conscious
reaction against some phase or phases of conventional or traditional
doctrine in religion--on the one hand, a claim to think freely, in
the sense not of disregard for logic, but of special loyalty to it,
on problems to which the past course of things has given a great
intellectual and practical importance; on the other hand, the actual
practice of such thinking. This sense, which is substantially agreed
on, will on one or other side sufficiently cover those phenomena of
early or rudimentary freethinking which wear the guise of simple
concrete opposition to given doctrines or systems, whether by way
of special demur or of the obtrusion of a new cult or doctrine. In
either case, the claim to think in a measure freely is implicit in
the criticism or the new affirmation; and such primary movements
of the mind cannot well be separated, in psychology or in history,
from the fully conscious practice of criticism in the spirit of
pure truth-seeking, or from the claim that such free examination
is profoundly important to moral and intellectual health. Modern
freethought, specially so-called, is only one of the developments of
the slight primary capacity of man to doubt, to reason, to improve on
past thinking, to assert his personality as against sacrosanct and
menacing authority. Concretely considered, it has proceeded by the
support and stimulus of successive accretions of actual knowledge;
and the modern consciousness of its own abstract importance emerged
by way of an impression or inference from certain social phenomena, as
well as in terms of self-asserting instinct. There is no break in its
evolution from primitive mental states, any more than in the evolution
of the natural sciences from primitive observation. What particularly
accrues to the state of conscious and systematic discrimination, in
the one case as in the other, is just the immense gain in security
of possession.
§ 2. PREVIOUS HISTORIES
It is somewhat remarkable that in England this phenomenon has thus
far [45] had no general historic treatment save at the hands of
ecclesiastical writers, who, in most cases, have regarded it solely
as a form of more or less perverse hostility to their own creed. The
modern scientific study of religions, which has yielded so many
instructive surveys, almost of necessity excludes from view the
specific play of freethought, which in the religion-making periods
is to be traced rather by its religious results than by any record
of its expression. All histories of philosophy, indeed, in some
degree necessarily recognize it; and such a work as Lange's History
of Materialism may be regarded as part--whether or not sound in its
historical treatment--of a complete history of freethought, dealing
specially with general philosophic problems. But of freethought as a
reasoned revision or rejection of current religious doctrines by more
or less practical people, we have no regular history by a professed
freethinker, though there are many monographs and surveys of periods.
The latest and freshest sketch of the kind is Professor
J. B. Bury's brief History of Freedom of Thought (1913), notable
for the force of its championship of the law of liberty. The useful
compilation of the late Mr. Charles Watts, entitled Freethought:
Its Rise, Progress, and Triumph (n. d.), deals with freethought
in relation only to Christianity. Apart from treatises which
broadly sketch the development of knowledge and of opinion,
the nearest approaches to a general historic treatment are the
Dictionnaire des Athées of Sylvain Maréchal (1800: 3e édit.,
par J. B. L. Germond, 1853) and the Biographical Dictionary
of Freethinkers by the late Joseph Mazzini Wheeler. The quaint
work of Maréchal, expanded by his friend Lalande, exhibits much
learning, but is made partly fantastic by its sardonic plan of
including a number of typical religionists (including Job, John,
and Jesus Christ!), some of whose utterances are held to lead
logically to atheism. Mr. Wheeler's book is in every respect the
more trustworthy.
In excuse of Maréchal's method, it may be noted that the prevailing
practice of Christian apologists had been to impute atheism to
heterodox theistic thinkers of all ages. The Historia universalis
Atheismi et Atheorum falso et merito suspectorum of J. F. Reimmann
(Hildesiæ, 1725) exhibits this habit both in its criticism and
in its practice, as do the Theses de Atheismo et Superstitione
of Buddeus (Trajecti ad Rhenum, 1716). These were the standard
treatises of their kind for the eighteenth century, and seem to
be the earliest systematic treatises in the nature of a history
of freethought, excepting a Historia Naturalismi by A. Tribbechov
(Jenæ, 1700) and a Historia Atheismi breviter delineata by Jenkinus
Thomasius (Altdorf, 1692; Basileæ, 1709; London, 1716). In the same
year with Reimmann's Historia appeared J. A. Fabricius's Delectus
Argumentorum et Syllabus scriptorum qui veritatem religionis
Christianæ adversus Atheos, Epicureos, Deistas, seu Naturalistas
... asseruerunt (Hamburghi), in which it is contended (cap. viii)
that many philosophers have been falsely described as atheists;
but in the Freydenker Lexicon of J. A. Trinius (Leipzig, 1759),
planned as a supplement to the work of Fabricius, are included
such writers as Sir Thomas Browne and Dryden.
The works of the late Rev. John Owen, Evenings with the Skeptics,
Skeptics of the Italian Renaissance, and Skeptics of the French
Renaissance, which, though not constituting a literary whole,
collectively cover a great deal of historical ground, must be
expressly excepted from the above characterization of clerical
histories of freethought, in respect of their liberality of
view. They deal largely, however, with general or philosophical
skepticism, which is a special development of freethought, often by
way of reasonings in which many freethinkers do not acquiesce. (All
strict skeptics, that is to say--as distinguished from religionists
who profess skepticism up to a certain point by way of making
a surrender to orthodox dogmatism [46]--are freethinkers;
but most freethinkers are not strictly skeptics.) The history
of philosophic skepticism, again, is properly and methodically
treated in the old work of Carl Friedrich Stäudlin, Geschichte
und Geist des Skepticismus (2 Bde., Leipzig, 1794), the historic
survey being divided into six periods: 1, Before Pyrrho; 2, from
Pyrrho to Sextus; 3, from Sextus to Montaigne; 4, from Montaigne
to La Mothe le Vayer; 5, from La Mothe le Vayer to Hume; 6, from
Hume to Kant and Platner. The posthumous work of Émile Saisset,
Le Scepticisme: Ænésidème--Pascal--Kant (1865), is a fragment of
a projected complete history of philosophic skepticism.
Stäudlin's later work, the Geschichte des Rationalismus und
Supernaturalismus (1826), is a shorter but more general history
of the strife between general freethought and supernaturalism
in the Christian world and era. It deals cursorily with the
intellectual attitude of the early Fathers, the early heretics,
and the Scholastics; proceeding to a fuller survey of the
developments since the Reformation, and covering Unitarianism,
Latitudinarianism, English and French Deism, and German Rationalism
of different shades down to the date of writing. Stäudlin may be
described as a rationalizing supernaturalist.
Like most works on religious and intellectual history written
from a religious standpoint, those of Stäudlin treat the
phenomena as it were in vacuo, with little regard to the
conditioning circumstances, economic and political; critical
thought being regarded purely as a force proceeding through
its own proclivities. Saisset is at very much the same point of
view. Needless to say, valuable work may be done up to a certain
point on this method, which is seen in full play in Hegel; and
high praise is due to the learned and thoughtful treatise of
R. W. Mackay, The Progress of the Intellect as Exemplified in the
Religious Development of the Greeks and Hebrews (2 vols. 1850),
where it is partially but ably supplemented by the method of
inductive science. That method, again, is freshly and forcibly
applied to a restricted problem in W. A. Schmidt's Geschichte
der Denk- und Glaubensfreiheit im ersten Jahrhundert der
Kaiserherrschaft und des Christenthums (1847).
Later come the Vorgeschichte des Rationalismus (1853-62) and
Geschichte des Rationalismus (1865) of the theologian Tholuck. Of
these the latter is unfinished, coming down only to the middle
of the eighteenth century; while the former does not exactly
fulfil its title, being composed of a volume (2 Abth. 1853, 1854)
on Das akademische Leben des 17ten Jahrhunderts, and of one on
Das kirchliche Leben des 17ten Jahrhunderts (2 Abth. 1861, 1862),
both being restricted to German developments. They thus give much
matter extraneous to the subject, and are not exhaustive as to
rationalism even in Germany. Hagenbach's Die Kirchengeschichte
des 18. und 19. Jahrhunderts (2 Th. 1848, 1849), a series of
lectures, translated in English, abridged, under the title German
Rationalism in its Rise, Progress, and Decline (1865), conforms
fairly to the latter title, save as regards the last clause.
Of much greater scholarly merit is the Geschichte der religiösen
Aufklärung im Mittelalter, vom Ende des achten Jahrhunderts bis
zum Anfange des vierzehnten, by Hermann Reuter (1875, 1877). This
is at once learned, judicious, and impartial. Its definition of
"Aufklärung" is substantially in agreement with the working
definition of Freethought given above.
Among other surveys of periods of innovating thought, as
distinguished from histories of ecclesiastical heresy, or
histories of "religious" or theological thought which only
incidentally deal with heterodox opinion, should be noted the
careful Geschichte des englischen Deismus of G. F. Lechler
(1841); the slighter sketch of E. Sayous, Les déistes anglais
et le Christianisme (1882); the somewhat diffuse work of
Cesare Cantù, Gli eretici d'Italia (3 tom. 1865-67); the very
intelligent study of Felice Tocco, L'Eresia nel medio evo (1884);
Schmidt's Histoire des Cathares (2 tom. 1849); Chr. U. Hahn's
learned Geschichte der Ketzer im Mittelalter (3 Bde. 1845-50);
and the valuable research of F. T. Perrens, Les Libertins en
France au xviie siècle (1896). A similar scholarly research for
the eighteenth century in France is still lacking, and the many
monographs on the more famous freethinkers leave a good deal
of literary history in obscurity. Such a research has been very
painstakingly made for England in the late Sir Leslie Stephen's
History of English Thought in the Eighteenth Century (2 vols.,
2nd ed., 1881), which, however, ignores scientific thought. One
of the best monographs of the kind is La Critique des traditions
religieuses chez les Grecs, des origines au temps de Plutarque,
by Professor Paul Decharme (1904), a survey at once scholarly
and attractive. The brilliant treatise of Mr. F. M. Cornford,
From Religion to Philosophy (1912), sketches on more speculative
lines the beginnings of Greek rationalism in Ionia. The Geschichte
des Monismus im Altertum of Prof. Dr. A. Drews (1913) is a wide
survey, of great synthetic value.
Contributions to the general history of freethought, further,
have been made in the works of J. W. Draper (A History of the
Intellectual Development of Europe, 2 vols, 1861, many reprints;
and History of the Conflict between Religion and Science, 1873,
many reprints), both full of suggestion and stimulus, but requiring
thorough revision as to detail; in the famous Introduction
to the History of Civilization in England of H. T. Buckle (2
vols. 1857-61; new ed. in 1 vol. with annotations by the present
writer, 1904); in the History of the Rise and Influence of the
Spirit of Rationalism in Europe of W. E. H. Lecky (2 vols. 1865;
R. P. A. rep. 1910), who was of Buckle's school, but fell below
him in point of coherence; in the comprehensive History of the
Warfare of Science with Theology of Professor Andrew D. White (2
vols. 1896--a great expansion of his earlier essay, The Warfare of
Science, 2nd ed. 1877); and in the essay of Mr. E. S. P. Haynes,
Religious Persecution: A Study in Political Psychology (1904;
R. P. A. rep. 1906), as well as in many histories of philosophy
and of sciences.
The so-called History of Rationalism of the American Bishop
J. F. Hurst, first published in 1865, and "revised" in 1901,
is in the main a work of odium theologicum, dealing chiefly
with the evolution of theology and criticism in Germany since
the Reformation. Even to that purpose it is very inadequate. Its
preface alleges that "happily the vital body of evangelical truth
has received only comparatively weak and timorous attacks from the
more modern representatives of the rank and rabid rationalism which
reached its climax near the close of the eighteenth, and has had
a continuous decline through the nineteenth, century." It urges,
however, as a reason for defensive activity, the consideration that
"the work of Satan is never planless"; and further pronounces that
the work of rationalism "must determine its character. This work
has been most injurious to the faith and life of the Church, and
its deeds must therefore be its condemnation" (Introd. p. 3). Thus
the latest approximation to a history of theological rationalism
by a clerical writer is the most negligible.
In English, apart from studies of given periods and of the progress
of science and culture, the only other approaches to a history of
freethought are those of Bishop Van Mildert, the Rev. J. E. Riddle,
and the Rev. Adam Storey Farrar. Van Mildert's Historical View of the
Rise and Progress of Infidelity [47] constituted the Boyle Lectures for
1802-05; Mr. Riddle's Natural History of Infidelity and Superstition
in Contrast with Christian Faith formed part of his Bampton Lectures
for 1852; and Mr. Farrar produced his Critical History of Freethought
in reference to the Christian Religion as the Bampton Lectures for
1862. All three were men of considerable reading, and their works
give useful bibliographical clues; but the virulence of Van Mildert
deprives his treatise of rational weight; Mr. Riddle, who in any case
professes to give merely a "Natural History" or abstract argument, and
not a history proper, is only somewhat more constrainedly hostile to
"infidelity"; and even Mr. Farrar, the most judicial as well as the
most comprehensive of the three, proceeds on the old assumption that
"unbelief" (from which he charitably distinguishes "doubt") generally
arises from "antagonism of feeling, which wishes revelation untrue"--a
thesis maintained with vehemence by the others. [48]
Writers so placed, indeed, could not well be expected to contemplate
freethought scientifically as an aspect of mental evolution common
to all civilizations, any more than to look with sympathy on the
freethought which is specifically anti-Christian. The annotations to
all three works, certainly, show some consciousness of the need for
another temper and method than that of their text, [49] which is too
obviously, perhaps inevitably, composed for the satisfaction of the
ordinary orthodox animus of their respective periods; but even the best
remains not so much a history as an indictment. In the present sketch,
framed though it be from the rationalistic standpoint, it is proposed
to draw up not a counter indictment, but a more or less dispassionate
account of the main historical phases of freethought, viewed on the
one hand as expressions of the rational or critical spirit, playing on
the subject-matter of religion, and on the other hand as sociological
phenomena conditioned by social forces, in particular the economic
and political. The lack of any previous general survey of a scientific
character will, it is hoped, be taken into account in passing judgment
on its schematic defects as well as its inevitable flaws of detail.
§ 3. THE PSYCHOLOGY OF FREETHINKING
Though it is no part of our business here to elaborate the psychology
of doubt and belief, it may be well to anticipate a possible criticism
on the lines of recent psychological speculation, and to indicate
at the outset the practical conception on which the present survey
broadly proceeds. To begin with, the conception of freethinking
implies that of hindrance, resistance, coercion, difficulty;
and as regards objective obstacles the type of all hindrance is
restraint upon freedom of speech or publication. In other words,
all such restraint is a check upon thinking. On reflection it soon
becomes clear that where men dare not say or write what they think,
the very power of thinking is at length impaired in the ablest, while
the natural stimulus to new thought is withdrawn from the rest. No
man can properly develop his mind without contact with other minds,
suggestion and criticism being alike factors in every fruitful mental
evolution; and though for some the atmosphere of personal intercourse
is but slightly necessary to the process of mental construction, even
for these the prospect of promulgation is probably essential to the
undertaking of the task; and the study of other writers is a condition
of useful ratiocination. In any case, it is certain that the exercise
of argument is a condition of intellectual growth. Not one man in
a million will or can argue closely with himself on issues on which
he knows he can say nothing and can never overtly act; and for the
average man all reasoning on great problems is a matter of prompting
from without. The simple fact that the conversation of uneducated
people runs so largely to citation of what "he says" makes clear this
dependence. Each brings something to the common store, and progress
is set up by "pooling" the mass of small intellectual variations or
originalities. Thus in the long run freedom of speech is the measure
of a generation's intellectual capacity; [50] and the promoters of
such freedom are typically the truest servants of progress.
On the other hand, there is still a common disposition to ascribe
to a species of intellectual malice the disturbance that criticism
causes to the holders of established beliefs. Recent writers have
pressed far the theorem that "will" enters as an element into every
mental act, thus giving a momentary appearance of support to the
old formula that unbelief is the result of an arbitrary or sinister
perversity of individual choice. Needless to say, however, the new
theorem--which inverts without refuting Spinoza's denial of the entity
of volition--applies equally to acts of belief; and it is a matter of
the simplest concrete observation that, in so far as will or wilfulness
in the ordinary sense operates in the sphere of religion, it is at
least as obvious and as active on the side of belief [51] as on the
other. A moment's reflection on the historic phenomena of orthodox
resistance to criticism will satisfy any student that, whatever may
have been the stimulus on the side of heresy, the antagonism it arouses
is largely the index of primary passion--the spontaneous resentment
of the believer whose habits are disturbed. His will normally decides
his action, without any process of judicial deliberation.
It is another way of stating the same fact to point out the fallacy
of the familiar assumption that freethinking represents a bias to
"negation." In the nature of the case, the believer has to do at least
as much negation as his opponents; and if again we scan history in
this connection, we shall see cause to conclude that the temperamental
tendency to negation--which is a form of variation like another--is
abundantly common on the side of religious conservatism. Nowhere
is there more habitual opposition to new ideas as such. At best the
believer, so-called, rejects a given proposition or suggestion because
it clashes with something he already believes. The new proposition,
however, has often been reached by way not of preliminary negation of
the belief in question, but of constructive explanation, undertaken to
bring observed facts into theoretic harmony. Thus the innovator has
only contingently put aside the old belief because it clashes with
something he believes in a more vital way; and he has done this with
circumspection, whereas his opponent too often repels him without a
second thought. The phenomena of the rise of the Copernican astronomy,
modern geology, and modern biology, all bear out this generalization.
Nor is the charge of negativeness any more generally valid against
such freethinking as directly assails current doctrines. There may
be, of course, negative-minded people on that side as on the other;
and such may fortuitously do something to promote freethought,
or may damage it in their neighbourhood by their atmosphere. But
everything goes to show that freethinking normally proceeds by way of
intellectual construction--that is, by way of effort to harmonize one
position with another; to modify a special dogma to the general run of
one's thinking. Rationalism stands not for "skepticism" in the strict
philosophic sense, but for a critical effort to reach certainties. The
attitude of pure skepticism on a wide scale is really very rare--much
rarer even than the philosophic effort. So far from freethinkers
being given to "destroying without building up," they are, as a rule,
unable to destroy a dogma either for themselves or for others without
setting a constructive belief in its place--a form of explanation,
that is; such being much more truly a process of construction than
would be the imposition of a new scheme of dogma. In point of fact,
they are often accused, and by the same critics, of an undue tendency
to speculative construction; and the early atheists of Greece and
of the modern period did so err. But that is only a proof the more
that their freethinking was not a matter of arbitrary volition or an
undue negativeness.
The only explanation which ostensibly countervails this is the old
one above glanced at--that the unbeliever finds the given doctrine
troublesome as a restraint, and so determines to reject it. It is
to be feared that this view has survived Mr. A. S. Farrar. Yet it
is very clear that no man need throw aside any faith, and least of
all Christianity, on the ground of its hampering his conduct. To say
nothing of the fact that in every age, under every religion, at every
stage of culture from that of the savage to that of the supersubtle
decadent or mystic, men have practised every kind of misconduct without
abandoning their supernatural credences--there is the special fact that
the whole Christian system rests on the doctrine of forgiveness of sins
to the believer. The theory of "wilful" disbelief on the part of the
reprobate is thus entirely unplausible. Such disbelief in the terms
of the case would be uneasy, as involving an element of incertitude;
and his fear of retribution could never be laid. On the other hand,
he has but inwardly to avow himself a sinner and a believer, and he
has the assurance that repentance at the last moment will outweigh
all his sins.
It is not, of course, suggested that such is the normal or frequent
course of believing Christians; but it has been so often enough to make
the "libertine" theory of unbelief untenable. Indeed, the singular
diversity between profession and practice among Christians has in
all periods called out declarations by the more fervid believers
that their average fellow-Christians are "practical atheists." More
judicial minds may be set asking instead how far men really "believe"
who do not act on their opinions. As one high authority has put it,
in the Middle Ages the normal opposition of theory and practice
"was peculiarly abrupt. Men's impulses were more violent, and their
conduct more reckless, than is often witnessed in modern society;
while the absence of a criticizing and measuring spirit made them
surrender their minds more unreservedly than they would do now to a
complete and imposing theory.... Resistance to God's Vicar might be,
and indeed was admitted to be, a deadly sin, but it was one which
nobody hesitated to commit." [52] And so with other sins, the sinner
having somewhere in the rear of his consciousness the reflection that
his sins could be absolved.
And, apart from such half-purposive forms of licence among Christians,
there have been countless cases of purposive licence. In all ages
there have been antinomian Christians, [53] whether of the sort that
simply rest on the "seventy times seven" of the Gospel, or of the more
articulately logical kind who dwell on the doctrine of faith versus
works. For the rest, as the considerate theologian will readily see,
insistence on the possibility of a sinister motive for the unbeliever
brings up the equal possibility of a sinister motive on the part of the
convert to Christianity, ancient or modern. At every turn, then, the
charge of perversity of the will recoils on the advocate of belief;
so that it would be the course of common prudence to abandon it,
even were it not in itself, as a rule, so plainly an expression of
irritated bias.
On the other hand, it need not be disputed that unbelief has been
often enough associated with some species of libertinism to give
a passing colour for the pretence of causal connection. The fact,
however, leads us to a less superficial explanation, worth keeping in
view here. Freethinking being taken to be normally a "variation" of
intellectual type in the direction of a critical demand for consistency
and credibility in beliefs, its social assertion will be a matter
on the one side of force of character or degree of recklessness,
and on the other hand of force of circumstances. The intellectual
potentiality and the propagandist purpose will be variously developed
in different men and in different surroundings. If we ask ourselves
how, in general, the critical tendency is to arise or to come into
play, we are almost compelled to suppose a special stimulus as
well as a special faculty. Critical doubt is made possible, broadly
speaking, by the accumulation of ideas or habits of certain kinds
which insensibly undo a previous state of homogeneity of thought. For
instance, a community subsiding into peace and order from a state of
warfare and plunder will at length find the ethic of its daily life
at variance with the conserved ethic of its early religion of human
sacrifice and special family or tribal sanctions; or a community
which has accumulated a certain amount of accurate knowledge of
astronomy will gradually find such knowledge irreconcilable with its
primitive cosmology. A specially gifted person will anticipate the
general movement of thought; but even for him some standing-ground
must be supposed; and for the majority the advance in moral practice
or scientific knowledge is the condition of any effective freethinking.
Between top and bottom, however, there are all grades of vivacity,
earnestness, and courage; and on the side of the normal resistance
there are all varieties of political and economic circumstance. It
follows, then, that the avowed freethinker may be so in virtue either
of special courage or of antecedent circumstances which make the
attitude on his part less courageous. And it may even be granted
to the quietist that the courage is at times that of ill-balanced
judgment or heady temperament; just as it may be conceded to the
conservative that it is at times that which goes with or follows on
disregard of wise ways of life. It is well that the full force of
this position be realized at the outset. When we find, as we shall,
some historic freethinkers displaying either extreme imprudence
or personal indiscipline, we shall be prepared, in terms of this
preliminary questioning, to realize anew that humanity has owed
a great deal to some of its "unbalanced" types; and that, though
discipline is nearly the last word of wisdom, indiscipline may at
times be the morbid accompaniment or excess of a certain openness of
view and spontaneity of action which are more favourable to moral and
intellectual advance than a cold prudence or a safe insusceptibility.
But cold or calm prudence in turn is not a vice; and it is hardly
possible to doubt that there have been in all ages varying numbers of
unbelievers who shrugged their shoulders over the follies of faith,
and declined to tilt against the windmills of fanaticism. There is much
reason for surmising that Shakespeare was a case in point. It is not
to be supposed, then, because some freethinkers who came out into the
open were unbalanced types, that their psychology is the psychology of
freethought, any more than that of General Gordon or Francis of Assisi
is to be reckoned typical on the side of belief. There must have been
myriads of quiet unbelievers, rational all round, whose unbelief was a
strictly intellectual process, undisturbed by temperament. In our own
day such types abound, and it is rather in them than in the abnormal
types of past freethought--the Brunos and the Voltaires--that the
average psychology of freethought is to be looked for and understood.
As for the case of the man who, already at odds with his fellows
in the matter of his conduct, may in some phases of society feel it
the easier to brave them in the matter of his avowed creed, we have
already seen that even this does not convict him of intellectual
dishonesty. And were such cases relatively as numerous as they are
scarce--were the debauched deists even commoner than the vinous Steeles
and Fieldings--the use of the fact as an argument would still be an
oblique course on the side of a religion which claims to have found
its first and readiest hearing among publicans and sinners. For the
rest, the harm done in the world's history by unbalanced freethinkers
is as dust in the balance against the immeasurable evil deliberately
wrought on serious religious motives, to say nothing of the constant
deviation of the mass of believers from their own professed code.
It may, finally, help a religious reader to a judicial view of the
phenomenon of freethought if he is reminded that every step forward in
the alleged historic evolution of his own creed would depend, in the
case put, on the existence of persons capable of rejecting a current
and prevailing code in favour of one either denounced as impious or
marked off by circumstances as dangerous. The Israelites in Egypt,
the prophets and their supporters, the Gospel Jesus and his adherents,
all ostensibly stand in some degree for positions of "negation,"
of hardy innovation, of disregard to things and persons popularly
venerated; wherefore Collins, in the Discourse above mentioned,
smilingly claimed at least the prophets as great freethinkers. On
that head it may suffice to say that some of the temperamental
qualifications would probably be very much the same for those who
of old brought about religious innovation in terms of supernatural
beliefs, and for those who in later times innovate by way of minimizing
or repudiating such beliefs, though the intellectual qualifications
might be different. Bruno and Dolet and Vanini and Voltaire, faulty
men all four, could at least be more readily conceived as prophets
in early Jewry, or reformers under Herod, than as Pharisees, or even
Sadducees, under either regimen.
Be that as it may, however, the issues between freethought and creed
are ultimately to be settled only in respect of their argumentative
bases, as appreciable by men in society at any given time. It is with
the notion of making the process of judicial appreciation a little
easier, by historically exhibiting the varying conditions under which
it has been undertaken in the past, that these pages are written.