,note3 ,numbers enclosed in square brackets are page numbers4 ,,home ,,university ,,library ,,of ,,modern ,,knowledge ,no4 #fi ,editors3 ,,herbert ,,fisher1 ,m4,a41 ,f4,b4,a4 ,prof4 ,,gilbert ,,murray1 ,litt4,d41 ,,ll4,d41 ,f4,b4,a4 ,prof4 ,j4 ,,arthur ,,thomson1 ,m4,a4 ,prof4 ,,william ,t4 ,,brewster1 ,m4,a4 ,a ,,history ,,of ,,freedom ,,of ,,thought ,,by ,j4 ,b4 ,,bury1 ,m4,a41 ,f4,b4,a ,,hon4 ,d4,,litt4 ,,of ,,oxford1 ,,durham1 ,,and ,,dublin1 ,,and ,,hon4 ,,ll4,d4 ,,of ,,edinburgh1 ,,glasgow1 ,,and ,,aberdeen ,,universities2 ,,regius ,,professor ,,of ,,modern ,,history1 ,,cambridge ,,university ,,author ,,of 8,,history ,,of ,,the ,,latter ,,roman ,,empire10 8,,history ,,of ,,greece10 8,,history ,,of ,,the ,,eastern ,,roman ,,empire10 ,,etc4 ,,iv #aiac1 ,v ,,contents ,,chap4 ,i ,introductory ,,ii ,reason ,free 7,greece ,and ,rome7 ,,iii ,reason in ,prison 7,the ,middle ,ages7 ,,iv ,prospect of ,deliverance 7,the ,renaissance and the ,reformation7 ,v ,religious ,toleration ,,vi ,the ,growth of ,rationalism 7,seventeenth and ,eighteenth ,centuries7 ,,vii ,the ,progress of ,rationalism 7,nineteenth ,century7 ,,viii ,the ,justification of ,liberty of ,thought ,bibliography ,index #g ,a ,,history ,,of ,,freedom ,,of ,,thought ,,chapter ,i ,,freedom ,,of ,,thought ,,and ,,the ,,forces ,,against ,,it 7,,introductory7 ,,it is a common saying that thought is free4 ,a man can never be hindered from thinking whatever he chooses so long as he conceals what he thinks4 ,the working of his mind is limited only by the bounds of his experience and the power of his imagination4 ,but this natural liberty of private thinking is of little value4 ,it is unsatisfactory and even painful to the thinker himself1 if he is not permitted to communicate his thoughts to others1 and it is obviously of no value to his neighbours4 ,moreover it is extremely difficult to hide thoughts that have any power over the mind4 ,if a man's thinking leads him to call in question ideas and customs which regulate the behaviour of those about him1 to reject beliefs which they hold1 to see better ways of life than those they follow1 it is almost #h impossible for him1 if he is convinced of the truth of his own reasoning1 not to betray by silence1 chance words1 or general attitude that he is different from them and does not share their opinions4 ,some have preferred1 like ,socrates1 some would prefer to-day1 to face death rather than conceal their thoughts4 ,thus freedom of thought1 in any valuable sense1 includes freedom of speech4 ,at present1 in the most civilized countries1 freedom of speech is taken as a matter of course and seems a perfectly simple thing4 ,we are so accustomed to it that we look on it as a natural right4 ,but this right has been acquired only in quite recent times1 and the way to its attainment has lain through lakes of blood4 ,it has taken centuries to persuade the most enlightened peoples that liberty to publish one's opinions and to discuss all questions is a good and not a bad thing4 ,human societies 7there are some brilliant exceptions7 have been generally opposed to freedom of thought1 or1 in other words1 to new ideas1 and it is easy to see why4 ,the average brain is naturally lazy and tends to take the line of least resistance4 ,the mental world of the ordinary man consists of beliefs which he has accepted without questioning and to which he is firmly attached2 he is instinctively hostile to anything which #i would upset the established order of this familiar world4 ,a new idea1 inconsistent with some of the beliefs which he holds1 means the necessity of rearranging his mind2 and this process is laborious1 requiring a painful expenditure of brain-energy4 ,to him and his fellows1 who form the vast majority1 new ideas1 and opinions which cast doubt on established beliefs and institutions1 seem evil because they are disagreeable4 ,the repugnance due to mere mental laziness is increased by a positive feeling of fear4 ,the conservative instinct hardens into the conservative doctrine that the foundations of society are endangered by any alterations in the structure4 ,it is only recently that men have been abandoning the belief that the welfare of a state depends on rigid stability and on the preservation of its traditions and institutions unchanged4 ,wherever that belief prevails1 novel opinions are felt to be dangerous as well as annoying1 and any one who asks inconvenient questions about the why and the wherefore of accepted principles is considered a pestilent person4 ,the conservative instinct1 and the conservative doctrine which is its consequence1 are strengthened by superstition4 ,if the social structure1 including the whole body of customs and opinions1 is associated intimately #aj with religious belief and is supposed to be under divine patronage1 criticism of the social order savours of impiety1 while criticism of the religious belief is a direct challenge to the wrath of supernatural powers4 ,the psychological motives which produce a conservative spirit hostile to new ideas are reinforced by the active opposition of certain powerful sections of the community1 such as a class1 a caste1 or a priesthood1 whose interests are bound up with the maintenance of the established order and the ideas on which it rests4 ,let us suppose1 for instance1 that a people believes that solar eclipses are signs employed by their ,deity for the special purpose of communicating useful information to them1 and that a clever man discovers the true cause of eclipses4 ,his compatriots in the first place dislike his discovery because they find it very difficult to reconcile with their other ideas2 in the second place1 it disturbs them1 because it upsets an arrangement which they consider highly advantageous to their community2 finally1 it frightens them1 as an offence to their ,divinity4 ,the priests1 one of whose functions is to interpret the divine signs1 are alarmed and enraged at a doctrine which menaces their power4 ,in prehistoric days1 these motives1 operating #aa strongly1 must have made change slow in communities which progressed1 and hindered some communities from progressing at all4 ,but they have continued to operate more or less throughout history1 obstructing knowledge and progress4 ,we can observe them at work to-day even in the most advanced societies1 where they have no longer the power to arrest development or repress the publication of revolutionary opinions4 ,we still meet people who consider a new idea an annoyance and probably a danger4 ,of those to whom socialism is repugnant1 how many are there who have never examined the arguments for and against it1 but turn away in disgust simply because the notion disturbs their mental universe and implies a drastic criticism on the order of things to which they are accustomed8 ,and how many are there who would refuse to consider any proposals for altering our imperfect matrimonial institutions1 because such an idea offends a mass of prejudice associated with religious sanctions8 ,they may be right or not1 but if they are1 it is not their fault4 ,they are actuated by the same motives which were a bar to progress in primitive societies4 ,the existence of people of this mentality1 reared in an atmosphere of freedom1 side by side with others who are always looking out for new ideas and #ab regretting that there are not more about1 enables us to realize how1 when public opinion was formed by the views of such men1 thought was fettered and the impediments to knowledge enormous4 ,although the liberty to publish one's opinions on any subject without regard to authority or the prejudices of one's neighbours is now a well- established principle1 ,i imagine that only the minority of those who would be ready to fight to the death rather than surrender it could defend it on rational grounds4 ,we are apt to take for granted that freedom of speech is a natural and inalienable birthright of man1 and perhaps to think that this is a sufficient answer to all that can be said on the other side4 ,but it is difficult to see how such a right can be established4 ,if a man has any 8natural rights10 the right to preserve his life and the right to reproduce his kind are certainly such4 ,yet human societies impose upon their members restrictions in the exercise of both these rights4 ,a starving man is prohibited from taking food which belongs to somebody else4 ,promiscuous reproduction is restricted by various laws or customs4 ,it is admitted that society is justified in restricting these elementary rights1 because without such restrictions an ordered society could not exist4 ,if then we #ac concede that the expression of opinion is a right of the same kind1 it is impossible to contend that on this ground it can claim immunity from interference or that society acts unjustly in regulating it4 ,but the concession is too large4 ,for whereas in the other cases the limitations affect the conduct of every one1 restrictions on freedom of opinion affect only the comparatively small number who have any opinions1 revolutionary or unconventional1 to express4 ,the truth is that no valid argument can be founded on the conception of natural rights1 because it involves an untenable theory of the relations between society and its members4 ,on the other hand1 those who have the responsibility of governing a society can argue that it is as incumbent on them to prohibit the circulation of pernicious opinions as to prohibit any anti-social actions4 ,they can argue that a man may do far more harm by propagating anti-social doctrines than by stealing his neighbour's horse or making love to his neighbour's wife4 ,they are responsible for the welfare of the ,state1 and if they are convinced that an opinion is dangerous1 by menacing the political1 religious1 or moral assumptions on which the society is based1 it is their duty to protect society against it1 as against any other danger4 #ad ,the true answer to this argument for limiting freedom of thought will appear in due course4 ,it was far from obvious4 ,a long time was needed to arrive at the conclusion that coercion of opinion is a mistake1 and only a part of the world is yet convinced4 ,that conclusion1 so far as ,i can judge1 is the most important ever reached by men4 ,it was the issue of a continuous struggle between authority and reason--the subject of this volume4 ,the word authority requires some comment4 ,if you ask somebody how he knows something1 he may say1 8,i have it on good authority10 or1 8,i read it in a book10 or1 8,it is a matter of common knowledge10 or1 8,i learned it at school40 ,any of these replies means that he has accepted information from others1 trusting in their knowledge1 without verifying their statements or thinking the matter out for himself4 ,and the greater part of most men's knowledge and beliefs is of this kind1 taken without verification from their parents1 teachers1 acquaintances1 books1 newspapers4 ,when an ,english boy learns ,french1 he takes the conjugations and the meanings of the words on the authority of his teacher or his grammar4 ,the fact that in a certain place1 marked on the map1 there is a populous city called ,calcutta1 is for most #ae people a fact accepted on authority4 ,so is the existence of ,napoleon or ,julius ,caesar4 ,familiar astronomical facts are known only in the same way1 except by those who have studied astronomy4 ,it is obvious that every one's knowledge would be very limited indeed1 if we were not justified in accepting facts on the authority of others4 ,but we are justified only under one condition4 ,the facts which we can safely accept must be capable of demonstration or verification4 ,the examples ,i have given belong to this class4 ,the boy can verify when he goes to ,france or is able to read a ,french book that the facts which he took on authority are true4 ,i am confronted every day with evidence which proves to me that1 if ,i took the trouble1 ,i could verify the existence of ,calcutta for myself4 ,i cannot convince myself in this way of the existence of ,napoleon1 but if ,i have doubts about it1 a simple process of reasoning shows me that there are hosts of facts which are incompatible with his non-existence4 ,i have no doubt that the earth is some #ic millions of miles distant from the sun1 because all astronomers agree that it has been demonstrated1 and their agreement is only explicable on the supposition that this has been demonstrated and that1 if ,i took the trouble to work out the calculation1 ,i should reach the same result4 #af ,but all our mental furniture is not of this kind4 ,the thoughts of the average man consist not only of facts open to verification1 but also of many beliefs and opinions which he has accepted on authority and cannot verify or prove4 ,belief in the ,trinity depends on the authority of the ,church and is clearly of a different order from belief in the existence of ,calcutta4 ,we cannot go behind the authority and verify or prove it4 ,if we accept it1 we do so because we have such implicit faith in the authority that we credit its assertions though incapable of proof4 ,the distinction may seem so obvious as to be hardly worth making4 ,but it is important to be quite clear about it4 ,the primitive man who had learned from his elders that there were bears in the hills and likewise evil spirits1 soon verified the former statement by seeing a bear1 but if he did not happen to meet an evil spirit1 it did not occur to him1 unless he was a prodigy1 that there was a distinction between the two statements2 he would rather have argued1 if he argued at all1 that as his tribesmen were right about the bears they were sure to be right also about the spirits4 ,in the ,middle ,ages a man who believed on authority that there is a city called ,constantinople and that comets are portents signifying divine wrath1 would not #ag distinguish the nature of the evidence in the two cases4 ,you may still sometimes hear arguments amounting to this3 since ,i believe in ,calcutta on authority1 am ,i not entitled to believe in the ,devil on authority8 ,now people at all times have been commanded or expected or invited to accept on authority alone--the authority1 for instance1 of public opinion1 or a ,church1 or a sacred book--doctrines which are not proved or are not capable of proof4 ,most beliefs about nature and man1 which were not founded on scientific observation1 have served directly or indirectly religious and social interests1 and hence they have been protected by force against the criticisms of persons who have the inconvenient habit of using their reason4 ,nobody minds if his neighbour disbelieves a demonstrable fact4 ,if a sceptic denies that ,napoleon existed1 or that water is composed of oxygen and hydrogen1 he causes amusement or ridicule4 ,but if he denies doctrines which cannot be demonstrated1 such as the existence of a personal ,god or the immortality of the soul1 he incurs serious disapprobation and at one time he might have been put to death4 ,our mediaeval friend would have only been called a fool if he doubted the existence of ,constantinople1 but if he had questioned the significance of comets he #ah might have got into trouble4 ,it is possible that if he had been so mad as to deny the existence of ,jerusalem he would not have escaped with ridicule1 for ,jerusalem is mentioned in the ,bible4 ,in the ,middle ,ages a large field was covered by beliefs which authority claimed to impose as true1 and reason was warned off the ground4 ,but reason cannot recognize arbitrary prohibitions or barriers1 without being untrue to herself4 ,the universe of experience is her province1 and as its parts are all linked together and interdependent1 it is impossible for her to recognize any territory on which she may not tread1 or to surrender any of her rights to an authority whose credentials she has not examined and approved4 ,the uncompromising assertion by reason of her absolute rights throughout the whole domain of thought is termed rationalism1 and the slight stigma which is still attached to the word reflects the bitterness of the struggle between reason and the forces arrayed against her4 ,the term is limited to the field of theology1 because it was in that field that the self-assertion of reason was most violently and pertinaciously opposed4 ,in the same way free thought1 the refusal of thought to be controlled by any authority but its own1 has a definitely theological reference4 ,throughout #ai the conflict1 authority has had great advantages4 ,at any time the people who really care about reason have been a small minority1 and probably will be so for a long time to come4 ,reason's only weapon has been argument4 ,authority has employed physical and moral violence1 legal coercion and social displeasure4 ,sometimes she has attempted to use the sword of her adversary1 thereby wounding herself4 ,indeed the weakest point in the strategical position of authority was that her champions1 being human1 could not help making use of reasoning processes and the result was that they were divided among themselves4 ,this gave reason her chance4 ,operating1 as it were1 in the enemy's camp and professedly in the enemy's cause1 she was preparing her own victory4 ,it may be objected that there is a legitimate domain for authority1 consisting of doctrines which lie outside human experience and therefore cannot be proved or verified1 but at the same time cannot be disproved4 ,of course1 any number of propositions can be invented which cannot be disproved1 and it is open to any one who possesses exuberant faith to believe them2 but no one will maintain that they all deserve credence so long as their falsehood is not demonstrated4 ,and if only some deserve credence1 who1 except reason1 #bj is to decide which8 ,if the reply is1 ,authority1 we are confronted by the difficulty that many beliefs backed by authority have been finally disproved and are universally abandoned4 ,yet some people speak as if we were not justified in rejecting a theological doctrine unless we can prove it false4 ,but the burden of proof does not lie upon the rejecter4 ,i remember a conversation in which1 when some disrespectful remark was made about hell1 a loyal friend of that establishment said triumphantly1 8,but1 absurd as it may seem1 you cannot disprove it40 ,if you were told that in a certain planet revolving round ,sirius there is a race of donkeys who talk the ,english language and spend their time in discussing eugenics1 you could not disprove the statement1 but would it1 on that account1 have any claim to be believed8 ,some minds would be prepared to accept it1 if it were reiterated often enough1 through the potent force of suggestion4 ,this force1 exercised largely by emphatic repetition 7the theoretical basis1 as has been observed1 of the modern practice of advertising71 has played a great part in establishing authoritative opinions and propagating religious creeds4 ,reason fortunately is able to avail herself of the same help4 ,the following sketch is confined to ,western #ba civilization4 ,it begins with ,greece and attempts to indicate the chief phases4 ,it is the merest introduction to a vast and intricate subject1 which1 treated adequately1 would involve not only the history of religion1 of the ,churches1 of heresies1 of persecution1 but also the history of philosophy1 of the natural sciences and of political theories4 ,from the sixteenth century to the ,french ,revolution nearly all important historical events bore in some way on the struggle for freedom of thought4 ,it would require a lifetime to calculate1 and many books to describe1 all the directions and interactions of the intellectual and social forces which1 since the fall of ancient civilization1 have hindered and helped the emancipation of reason4 ,all one can do1 all one could do even in a much bigger volume than this1 is to indicate the general course of the struggle and dwell on some particular aspects which the writer may happen to have specially studied4 #ba ,,chapter ,,ii ,,reason ,,free 7,,greece ,,and ,,rome7 ,,when we are asked to specify the debt which civilization owes to the ,greeks1 their #bb achievements in literature and art naturally occur to us first of all4 ,but a truer answer may be that our deepest gratitude is due to them as the originators of liberty of thought and discussion4 ,for this freedom of spirit was not only the condition of their speculations in philosophy1 their progress in science1 their experiments in political institutions2 it was also a condition of their literary and artistic excellence4 ,their literature1 for instance1 could not have been what it is if they had been debarred from free criticism of life4 ,but apart from what they actually accomplished1 even if they had not achieved the wonderful things they did in most of the realms of human activity1 their assertion of the principle of liberty would place them in the highest rank among the benefactors of the race2 for it was one of the greatest steps in human progress4 ,we do not know enough about the earliest history of the ,greeks to explain how it was that they attained their free outlook upon the world and came to possess the will and courage to set no bounds to the range of their criticism and curiosity4 ,we have to take this character as a fact4 ,but it must be remembered that the ,greeks consisted of a large number of separate peoples1 who varied largely in temper1 customs and traditions1 #bc though they had important features common to all4 ,some were conservative1 or backward1 or unintellectual compared with others4 ,in this chapter 8the ,greeks0 does not mean all the ,greeks1 but only those who count most in the history of civilization1 especially the ,ionians and ,athenians4 ,ionia in ,asia ,minor was the cradle of free speculation4 ,the history of ,european science and ,european philosophy begins in ,ionia4 ,here 7in the sixth and fifth centuries ,b4,c47 the early philosophers by using their reason sought to penetrate into the origin and structure of the world4 ,they could not of course free their minds entirely from received notions1 but they began the work of destroying orthodox views and religious faiths4 ,xenophanes may specially be named among these pioneers of thought 7though he was not the most important or the ablest71 because the toleration of his teaching illustrates the freedom of the atmosphere in which these men lived4 ,he went about from city to city1 calling in question on moral grounds the popular beliefs about the gods and goddesses1 and ridiculing the anthropomorphic conceptions which the ,greeks had formed of their divinities4 8,if oxen had hands and the capacities of men1 they would make gods in the shape of oxen40 ,this attack on received #bd theology was an attack on the veracity of the old poets1 especially ,homer1 who was considered the highest authority on mythology4 ,xenophanes criticized him severely for ascribing to the gods acts which1 committed by men1 would be considered highly disgraceful4 ,we do not hear that any attempt was made to restrain him from thus assailing traditional beliefs and branding ,homer as immoral4 ,we must remember that the ,homeric poems were never supposed to be the word of ,god4 ,it has been said that ,homer was the ,bible of the ,greeks4 ,the remark exactly misses the truth4 ,the ,greeks fortunately had no ,bible1 and this fact was both an expression and an important condition of their freedom4 ,homer's poems were secular1 not religious1 and it may be noted that they are freer from immorality and savagery than sacred books that one could mention4 ,their authority was immense2 but it was not binding like the authority of a sacred book1 and so ,homeric criticism was never hampered like ,biblical criticism4 ,in this connexion1 notice may be taken of another expression and condition of freedom1 the absence of sacerdotalism4 ,the priests of the temples never became powerful castes1 tyrannizing over the community in their own interests and able to silence voices raised against religious beliefs4 ,the civil authorities #be kept the general control of public worship in their own hands1 and1 if some priestly families might have considerable influence1 yet as a rule the priests were virtually ,state servants whose voice carried no weight except concerning the technical details of ritual4 ,to return to the early philosophers1 who were mostly materialists1 the record of their speculations is an interesting chapter in the history of rationalism4 ,two great names may be selected1 ,heraclitus and ,democritus1 because they did more perhaps than any of the others1 by sheer hard thinking1 to train reason to look upon the universe in new ways and to shock the unreasoned conceptions of common sense4 ,it was startling to be taught1 for the first time1 by ,heraclitus1 that the appearance of stability and permanence which material things present to our senses is a false appearance1 and that the world and everything in it are changing every instant4 ,democritus performed the amazing feat of working out an atomic theory of the universe1 which was revived in the seventeenth century and is connected1 in the history of speculation1 with the most modern physical and chemical theories of matter4 ,no fantastic tales of creation1 imposed by sacred authority1 hampered these powerful brains4 ,all this philosophical speculation prepared #bf the way for the educationalists who were known as the ,sophists4 ,they begin to appear after the middle of the fifth century4 ,they worked here and there throughout ,greece1 constantly travelling1 training young men for public life1 and teaching them to use their reason4 ,as educators they had practical ends in view4 ,they turned away from the problems of the physical universe to the problems of human life--morality and polities4 ,here they were confronted with the difficulty of distinguishing between truth and error1 and the ablest of them investigated the nature of knowledge1 the method of reason--logic-- and the instrument of reason--speech4 ,whatever their particular theories might be1 their general spirit was that of free inquiry and discussion4 ,they sought to test everything by reason4 ,the second half of the fifth century might be called the age of ,illumination4 ,it may be remarked that the knowledge of foreign countries which the ,greeks had acquired had a considerable effect in promoting a sceptical attitude towards authority4 ,when a man is acquainted only with the habits of his own country1 they seem so much a matter of course that he ascribes them to nature1 but when he travels abroad and finds totally different habits and standards of conduct prevailing1 he begins to understand #bg the power of custom2 and learns that morality and religion are matters of latitude4 ,this discovery tends to weaken authority1 and to raise disquieting reflections1 as in the case of one who1 brought up as a ,christian1 comes to realize that1 if he had been born on the ,ganges or the ,euphrates1 he would have firmly believed in entirely different dogmas4 ,of course these movements of intellectual freedom were1 as in all ages1 confined to the minority4 ,everywhere the masses were exceedingly superstitious4 ,they believed that the safety of their cities depended on the good-will of their gods4 ,if this superstitious spirit were alarmed1 there was always a danger that philosophical speculations might be persecuted4 ,and this occurred in ,athens4 ,about the middle of the fifth century ,athens had not only become the most powerful ,state in ,greece1 but was also taking the highest place in literature and art4 ,she was a full-fledged democracy4 ,political discussion was perfectly free4 ,at this time she was guided by the statesman ,pericles1 who was personally a freethinker1 or at least was in touch with all the subversive speculations of the day4 ,he was especially intimate with the philosopher ,anaxagoras who had come from ,ionia to teach at ,athens4 ,in regard to the popular gods ,anaxagoras was a thorough-going #bh unbeliever4 ,the political enemies of ,pericles struck at him by attacking his friend4 ,they introduced and carried a blasphemy law1 to the effect that unbelievers and those who taught theories about the celestial world might be impeached4 ,it was easy to prove that ,anaxagoras was a blasphemer who taught that the gods were abstractions and that the sun1 to which the ordinary ,athenian said prayers morning and evening1 was a mass of flaming matter4 ,the influence of ,pericles saved him from death2 he was heavily fined and left ,athens for ,lampsacus1 where he was treated with consideration and honour4 ,other cases are recorded which show that anti-religious thought was liable to be persecuted4 ,protagoras1 one of the greatest of the ,sophists1 published a book ,on the ,gods1 the object of which seems to have been to prove that one cannot know the gods by reason4 ,the first words ran3 8,concerning the gods1 ,i cannot say that they exist nor yet that they do not exist4 ,there are more reasons than one why we cannot know4 ,there is the obscurity of the subject and there is the brevity of human life40 ,a charge of blasphemy was lodged against him and he fled from ,athens4 ,but there was no systematic policy of suppressing free thought4 ,copies of the work of ,protagoras were collected and #bi burned1 but the book of ,anaxagoras setting forth the views for which he had been condemned was for sale on the ,athenian book-stalls at a popular price4 ,rationalistic ideas moreover were venturing to appear on the stage1 though the dramatic performances1 at the feasts of the god ,dionysus1 were religious solemnities4 ,the poet ,euripides was saturated with modern speculation1 and1 while different opinions may be held as to the tendencies of some of his tragedies1 he often allows his characters to express highly unorthodox views4 ,he was prosecuted for impiety by a popular politician4 ,we may suspect that during the last thirty years of the fifth century unorthodoxy spread considerably among the educated classes4 ,there was a large enough section of influential rationalists to render impossible any organized repression of liberty1 and the chief evil of the blasphemy law was that it could be used for personal or party reasons4 ,some of the prosecutions1 about which we know1 were certainly due to such motives1 others may have been prompted by genuine bigotry and by the fear lest sceptical thought should extend beyond the highly educated and leisured class4 ,it was a generally accepted principle among the ,greeks1 and afterwards among the ,romans1 that religion was a good and necessary thing #cj for the common people4 ,men who did not believe in its truth believed in its usefulness as a political institution1 and as a rule philosophers did not seek to diffuse disturbing 8truth0 among the masses4 ,it was the custom1 much more than at the present day1 for those who did not believe in the established cults to conform to them externally4 ,popular higher education was not an article in the programme of ,greek statesmen or thinkers4 ,and perhaps it may be argued that in the circumstances of the ancient world it would have been hardly practicable4 ,there was1 however1 one illustrious ,athenian1 who thought differently--,socrates1 the philosopher4 ,socrates was the greatest of the educationalists1 but unlike the others he taught gratuitously1 though he was a poor man4 ,his teaching always took the form of discussion2 the discussion often ended in no positive result1 but had the effect of showing that some received opinion was untenable and that truth is difficult to ascertain4 ,he had indeed certain definite views about knowledge and virtue1 which are of the highest importance in the history of philosophy1 but for our present purpose his significance lies in his enthusiasm for discussion and criticism4 ,he taught those with whom he conversed--and he conversed indiscriminately #ca with all who would listen to him--to bring all popular beliefs before the bar of reason1 to approach every inquiry with an open mind1 and not to judge by the opinion of majorities or the dictate of authority2 in short to seek for other tests of the truth of an opinion than the fact that it is held by a great many people4 ,among his disciples were all the young men who were to become the leading philosophers of the next generation and some who played prominent parts in ,athenian history4 ,if the ,athenians had had a daily press1 ,socrates would have been denounced by the journalists as a dangerous person4 ,they had a comic drama1 which constantly held up to ridicule philosophers and sophists and their vain doctrines4 ,we possess one play 7the ,clouds of ,aristophanes7 in which ,socrates is pilloried as a typical representative of impious and destructive speculations4 ,apart from annoyances of this kind1 ,socrates reached old age1 pursuing the task of instructing his fellow-citizens1 without any evil befalling him4 ,then1 at the age of seventy1 he was prosecuted as an atheist and corrupter of youth and was put to death 7#cii ,b4,c474 ,it is strange that if the ,athenians really thought him dangerous they should have suffered him so long4 ,there can1 ,i think1 be #cb little doubt that the motives of the accusation were political4 #a ,socrates1 looking at things as he did1 could not be sympathetic with unlimited democracy1 or approve of the principle that the will of the ignorant majority was a good guide4 ,he was probably known to sympathize with those who wished to limit the franchise4 ,when1 after a struggle in which the constitution had been more than once overthrown1 democracy emerged triumphant 7#djc ,b4,c471 there was a bitter feeling against those who had not been its friends1 and of these disloyal persons ,socrates was chosen as a victim4 ,if he had wished1 he could easily have escaped4 ,if he had given an undertaking to teach no more1 he would almost certainly have been acquitted4 ,as it was1 of the #eja ordinary ,athenians who were his judges1 a very large minority voted for his acquittal4 ,even then1 if he had adopted a different tone1 he would not have been condemned to death4 ,he rose to the great occasion and vindicated freedom of discussion in a wonderful unconventional speech4 ,the ,apology of ,socrates1 which was composed by his most brilliant pupil1 ,plato the philosopher1 reproduces #cc the general tenor of his defence4 ,it is clear that he was not able to meet satisfactorily the charge that he did not acknowledge the gods worshipped by the city1 and his explanations on this point are the weak part of his speech4 ,but he met the accusation that he corrupted the minds of the young by a splendid plea for free discussion4 ,this is the most valuable section of the ,apology2 it is as impressive to-day as ever4 ,i think the two principal points which he makes are these-- 7#a7 ,he maintains that the individual should at any cost refuse to be coerced by any human authority or tribunal into a course which his own mind condemns as wrong4 ,that is1 he asserts the supremacy of the individual conscience1 as we should say1 over human law4 ,he represents his own life-work as a sort of religious quest2 he feels convinced that in devoting himself to philosophical discussion he has done the bidding of a super-human guide2 and he goes to death rather than be untrue to this personal conviction4 8,if you propose to acquit me10 he says1 8on condition that ,i abandon my search for truth1 ,i will say3 ,i thank you1 ,o ,athenians1 but ,i will obey ,god1 who1 as ,i believe1 set me this task1 rather than you1 and so long as ,i have breath and strength ,i will never #cd cease from my occupation with philosophy4 ,i will continue the practice of accosting whomever ,i meet and saying to him1 #8,are you not ashamed of setting your heart on wealth and honours while you have no care for wisdom and truth and making your soul better8' ,i know not what death is--it may be a good thing1 and ,i am not afraid of it4 ,but ,i do know that it is a bad thing to desert one's post and ,i prefer what may be good to what ,i know to be bad40 7#b7 ,he insists on the public value of free discussion4 8,in me you have a stimulating critic1 persistently urging you with persuasion and reproaches1 persistently testing your opinions and trying to show you that you are really ignorant of what you suppose you know4 ,daily discussion of the matters about which you hear me conversing is the highest good for man4 ,life that is not tested by such discussion is not worth living40 ,thus in what we may call the earliest justification of liberty of thought we have two significant claims affirmed3 the indefeasible right of the conscience of the individual --a claim on which later struggles for liberty were to turn2 and the social importance of discussion and criticism4 ,the former claim is not based on argument but on intuition2 it rests in fact on the assumption #ce of some sort of superhuman moral principle1 and to those who1 not having the same personal experience as ,socrates1 reject this assumption1 his pleading does not carry weight4 ,the second claim1 after the experience of more than #b1jjj years1 can be formulated more comprehensively now with bearings of which he did not dream4 ,the circumstances of the trial of ,socrates illustrate both the tolerance and the intolerance which prevailed at ,athens4 ,his long immunity1 the fact that he was at last indicted from political motives and perhaps personal also1 the large minority in his favour1 all show that thought was normally free1 and that the mass of intolerance which existed was only fitfully invoked1 and perhaps most often to serve other purposes4 ,i may mention the case of the philosopher ,aristotle1 who some seventy years later left ,athens because he was menaced by a prosecution for blasphemy1 the charge being a pretext for attacking one who belonged to a certain political party4 ,the persecution of opinion was never organized4 ,it may seem curious that to find the persecuting spirit in ,greece we have to turn to the philosophers4 ,plato1 the most brilliant disciple of ,socrates1 constructed in his later years an ideal ,state4 ,in this ,state he instituted #cf a religion considerably different from the current religion1 and proposed to compel all the citizens to believe in his gods on pain of death or imprisonment4 ,all freedom of discussion was excluded under the cast-iron system which he conceived4 ,but the point of interest in his attitude is that he did not care much whether a religion was true1 but only whether it was morally useful2 he was prepared to promote morality by edifying fables2 and he condemned the popular mythology not because it was false1 but because it did not make for righteousness4 ,the outcome of the large freedom permitted at ,athens was a series of philosophies which had a common source in the conversations of ,socrates4 ,plato1 ,aristotle1 the ,stoics1 the ,epicureans1 the ,sceptics--it may be maintained that the efforts of thought represented by these names have had a deeper influence on the progress of man than any other continuous intellectual movement1 at least until the rise of modern science in a new epoch of liberty4 ,the doctrines of the ,epicureans1 ,stoics1 and ,sceptics all aimed at securing peace and guidance for the individual soul4 ,they were widely propagated throughout the ,greek world from the third century ,b4,c41 and we may say that from this time onward most #cg well-educated ,greeks were more or less rationalists4 ,the teaching of ,epicurus had a distinct anti-religious tendency4 ,he considered fear to be the fundamental motive of religion1 and to free men's minds from this fear was a principal object of his teaching4 ,he was a ,materialist1 explaining the world by the atomic theory of ,democritus and denying any divine government of the universe4 #b ,he did indeed hold the existence of gods1 but1 so far as men are concerned1 his gods are as if they were not--living in some remote abode and enjoying a 8sacred and everlasting calm40 ,they just served as an example of the realization of the ideal ,epicurean life4 ,there was something in this philosophy which had the power to inspire a poet of singular genius to expound it in verse4 ,the ,roman ,lucretius 7first century ,b4,c47 regarded ,epicurus as the great deliverer of the human race and determined to proclaim the glad tidings of his philosophy in a poem ,on the ,nature of the ,world4 #c ,with all the fervour #ch of a religious enthusiast he denounces religion1 sounding every note of defiance1 loathing1 and contempt1 and branding in burning words the crimes to which it had urged man on4 ,he rides forth as a leader of the hosts of atheism against the walls of heaven4 ,he explains the scientific arguments as if they were the radiant revelation of a new world2 and the rapture of his enthusiasm is a strange accompaniment of a doctrine which aimed at perfect calm4 ,although the ,greek thinkers had done all the work and the ,latin poem is a hymn of triumph over prostrate deities1 yet in the literature of free thought it must always hold an eminent place by the sincerity of its audacious1 defiant spirit4 ,in the history of rationalism its interest would be greater if it had exploded in the midst of an orthodox community4 ,but the educated ,romans in the days of ,lucretius were sceptical in religious matters1 some of them were ,epicureans1 and we may suspect that not many of those who read it were shocked or influenced by the audacities of the champion of irreligion4 ,the ,stoic philosophy made notable contributions to the cause of liberty and could hardly have flourished in an atmosphere where discussion was not free4 ,it asserted the rights of individuals against public #ci authority4 ,socrates had seen that laws may be unjust and that peoples may go wrong1 but he had found no principle for the guidance of society4 ,the ,stoics discovered it in the law of nature1 prior and superior to all the customs and written laws of peoples1 and this doctrine1 spreading outside ,stoic circles1 caught hold of the ,roman world and affected ,roman legislation4 ,these philosophies have carried us from ,greece to ,rome4 ,in the later ,roman ,republic and the early ,empire1 no restrictions were imposed on opinion1 and these philosophies1 which made the individual the first consideration1 spread widely4 ,most of the leading men were unbelievers in the official religion of the ,state1 but they considered it valuable for the purpose of keeping the uneducated populace in order4 ,a ,greek historian expresses high approval of the ,roman policy of cultivating superstition for the benefit of the masses4 ,this was the attitude of ,cicero1 and the view that a false religion is indispensable as a social machine was general among ancient unbelievers4 ,it is common1 in one form or another1 to-day2 at least1 religions are constantly defended on the ground not of truth but of utility4 ,this defence belongs to the statecraft of ,machiavelli1 who taught that religion is necessary for government1 #dj and that it may be the duty of a ruler to support a religion which he believes to be false4 ,a word must be said of ,lucian 7second century ,a4,d471 the last ,greek man of letters whose writings appeal to everybody4 ,he attacked the popular mythology with open ridicule4 ,it is impossible to say whether his satires had any effect at the time beyond affording enjoyment to educated infidels who read them4 ,zeus in a ,tragedy ,part is one of the most effective4 ,the situation which ,lucian imagined here would be paralleled if a modern writer were blasphemously to represent the ,persons of the ,trinity with some eminent angels and saints discussing in a celestial smoke-room the alarming growth of unbelief in ,england and then by means of a telephonic apparatus overhearing a dispute between a freethinker and a parson on a public platform in ,london4 ,the absurdities of anthropomorphism have never been the subject of more brilliant jesting than in ,lucian's satires4 ,the general rule of ,roman policy was to tolerate throughout the ,empire all religions and all opinions4 ,blasphemy was not punished4 ,the principle was expressed in the maxim of the ,emperor ,tiberius3 8,if the gods are insulted1 let them see to it themselves40 ,an exception to the rule of tolerance #da was made in the case of the ,christian sect1 and the treatment of this ,oriental religion may be said to have inaugurated religious persecution in ,europe4 ,it is a matter of interest to understand why ,emperors who were able1 humane1 and not in the least fanatical1 adopted this exceptional policy4 ,for a long time the ,christians were only known to those ,romans who happened to hear of them1 as a sect of the ,jews4 ,the ,jewish was the one religion which1 on account of its exclusiveness and intolerance1 was regarded by the tolerant pagans with disfavour and suspicion4 ,but though it sometimes came into collision with the ,roman authorities and some ill-advised attacks upon it were made1 it was the constant policy of the ,emperors to let it alone and to protect the ,jews against the hatred which their own fanaticism aroused4 ,but while the ,jewish religion was endured so long as it was confined to those who were born into it1 the prospect of its dissemination raised a new question4 ,grave misgivings might arise in the mind of a ruler at seeing a creed spreading which was aggressively hostile to all the other creeds of the world--creeds which lived together in amity--and had earned for its adherents the reputation of being the enemies of the human race4 ,might not its expansion #db beyond the ,israelites involve ultimately a danger to the ,empire8 ,for its spirit was incompatible with the traditions and basis of ,roman society4 ,the ,emperor ,domitian seems to have seen the question in this light1 and he took severe measures to hinder the proselytizing of ,roman citizens4 ,some of those whom he struck may have been ,christians1 but if he was aware of the distinction1 there was from his point of view no difference4 ,christianity resembled ,judaism1 from which it sprang1 in intolerance and in hostility towards ,roman society1 but it differed by the fact that it made many proselytes while ,judaism made few4 ,under ,trajan we find that the principle has been laid down that to be a ,christian is an offence punishable by death4 ,henceforward ,christianity remained an illegal religion4 ,but in practice the law was not applied rigorously or logically4 ,the ,emperors desired1 if possible1 to extirpate ,christianity without shedding blood4 ,trajan laid down that ,christians were not to be sought out1 that no anonymous charges were to be noticed1 and that an informer who failed to make good his charge should be liable to be punished under the laws against calumny4 ,christians themselves recognized that this edict practically protected them4 ,there were #dc some executions in the second century--not many that are well attested--and ,christians courted the pain and glory of martyrdom4 ,there is evidence to show that when they were arrested their escape was often connived at4 ,in general1 the persecution of the ,christians was rather provoked by the populace than desired by the authorities4 ,the populace felt a horror of this mysterious ,oriental sect which openly hated all the gods and prayed for the destruction of the world4 ,when floods1 famines1 and especially fires occurred they were apt to be attributed to the black magic of the ,christians4 ,when any one was accused of ,christianity1 he was required1 as a means of testing the truth of the charge1 to offer incense to the gods or to the statues of deified ,emperors4 ,his compliance at once exonerated him4 ,the objection of the ,christians--they and the ,jews were the only objectors--to the worship of the ,emperors was1 in the eyes of the ,romans1 one of the most sinister signs that their religion was dangerous4 ,the purpose of this worship was to symbolize the unity and solidarity of an ,empire which embraced so many peoples of different beliefs and different gods2 its intention was political1 to promote union and loyalty2 and it is not surprising that those who denounced it should #dd be suspected of a disloyal spirit4 ,but it must be noted that there was no necessity for any citizen to take part in this worship4 ,no conformity was required from any inhabitants of the ,empire who were not serving the ,state as soldiers or civil functionaries4 ,thus the effect was to debar ,christians from military and official careers4 ,the ,apologies for ,christianity which appeared at this period 7second century7 might have helped1 if the ,emperors 7to whom some of them were addressed7 had read them1 to confirm the view that it was a political danger4 ,it would have been easy to read between the lines that1 if the ,christians ever got the upper hand1 they would not spare the cults of the ,state4 ,the contemporary work of ,tatian 7,a ,discourse to the ,greeks7 reveals what the ,apologists more or less sought to disguise1 invincible hatred towards the civilization in which they lived4 ,any reader of the ,christian literature of the time could not fail to see that in a ,state where ,christians had the power there would be no tolerance of other religious practices4 #d ,if the ,emperors made an exception to their tolerant policy in the case of ,christianity1 their purpose was to safeguard tolerance4 #de ,in the third century the religion1 though still forbidden1 was quite openly tolerated2 the ,church organized itself without concealment2 ecclesiastical councils assembled without interference4 ,there were some brief and local attempts at repression1 there was only one grave persecution 7begun by ,decius1 ,a4,d4 #bej1 and continued by ,valerian74 ,in fact1 throughout this century1 there were not many victims1 though afterwards the ,christians invented a whole mythology of martyrdoms4 ,many cruelties were imputed to ,emperors under whom we know that the ,church enjoyed perfect peace4 ,a long period of civil confusion1 in which the ,empire seemed to be tottering to its fall1 had been terminated by the ,emperor ,diocletian1 who1 by his radical administrative reforms1 helped to preserve the ,roman power in its integrity for another century4 ,he desired to support his work of political consolidation by reviving the ,roman spirit1 and he attempted to infuse new life into the official religion4 ,to this end he determined to suppress the growing influence of the ,christians1 who1 though a minority1 were very numerous1 and he organized a persecution4 ,it was long1 cruel and bloody2 it was the most whole-hearted1 general and systematic effort to crush the forbidden faith4 ,it was a #df failure1 the ,christians were now too numerous to be crushed4 ,after the abdication of ,diocletian1 the ,emperors who reigned in different parts of the realm did not agree as to the expediency of his policy1 and the persecution ended by edicts of toleration 7,a4,d4 #caa and #cac74 ,these documents have an interest for the history of religious liberty4 ,the first1 issued in the eastern provinces1 ran as follows3-- 8,we were particularly desirous of reclaiming into the way of reason and nature the deluded ,christians1 who had renounced the religion and ceremonies instituted by their fathers and1 presumptuously despising the practice of antiquity1 had invented extravagant laws and opinions according to the dictates of their fancy1 and had collected a various society from the different provinces of our ,empire4 ,the edicts which we have published to enforce the worship of the gods1 having exposed many of the ,christians to danger and distress1 many having suffered death and many more1 who still persist in their impious folly1 being left destitute of any public exercise of religion1 we are disposed to extend to those unhappy men the effects of our wonted clemency4 ,we permit them1 therefore1 freely to profess their private opinions1 and to assemble in their conventicles #dg without fear or molestation1 provided always that they preserve a due respect to the established laws and government40 #e ,the second1 of which ,constantine was the author1 known as the ,edict of ,milan1 was to a similar effect1 and based toleration on the ,emperor's care for the peace and happiness of his subjects and on the hope of appeasing the ,deity whose seat is in heaven4 ,the relations between the ,roman government and the ,christians raised the general question of persecution and freedom of conscience4 ,a ,state1 with an official religion1 but perfectly tolerant of all creeds and cults1 finds that a society had arisen in its midst which is uncompromisingly hostile to all creeds but its own and which1 if it had the power1 would suppress all but its own4 ,the government1 in self-defence1 decides to check the dissemination of these subversive ideas and makes the profession of that creed a crime1 not on account of its particular tenets1 but on account of the social consequences of those tenets4 ,the members of the society cannot without violating their consciences and incurring damnation abandon their exclusive doctrine4 ,the principle of freedom of conscience is asserted as superior to all obligations to the ,state1 and the ,state1 confronted #dh by this new claim1 is unable to admit it4 ,persecution is the result4 ,even from the standpoint of an orthodox and loyal pagan the persecution of the ,christians is indefensible1 because blood was shed uselessly4 ,in other words1 it was a great mistake because it was unsuccessful4 ,for persecution is a choice between two evils4 ,the alternatives are violence 7which no reasonable defender of persecution would deny to be an evil in itself7 and the spread of dangerous opinions4 ,the first is chosen simply to avoid the second1 on the ground that the second is the greater evil4 ,but if the persecution is not so devised and carried out as to accomplish its end1 then you have two evils instead of one1 and nothing can justify this4 ,from their point of view1 the ,emperors had good reasons for regarding ,christianity as dangerous and anti-social1 but they should either have let it alone or taken systematic measures to destroy it4 ,if at an early stage they had established a drastic and systematic inquisition1 they might possibly have exterminated it4 ,this at least would have been statesmanlike4 ,but they had no conception of extreme measures1 and they did not understand --they had no experience to guide them --the sort of problem they had to deal with4 ,they hoped to succeed by intimidation4 #di ,their attempts at suppression were vacillating1 fitful1 and ridiculously ineffectual4 ,the later persecutions 7of ,a4,d4 #bej and #cjc7 had no prospect of success4 ,it is particularly to be observed that no effort was made to suppress ,christian literature4 ,the higher problem whether persecution1 even if it attains the desired end1 is justifiable1 was not considered4 ,the struggle hinged on antagonism between the conscience of the individual and the authority and supposed interests of the ,state4 ,it was the question which had been raised by ,socrates1 raised now on a wider platform in a more pressing and formidable shape3 what is to happen when obedience to the law is inconsistent with obedience to an invisible master8 ,is it incumbent on the ,state to respect the conscience of the individual at all costs1 or within what limits8 ,the ,christians did not attempt a solution1 the general problem did not interest them4 ,they claimed the right of freedom exclusively for themselves from a non-,christian government2 and it is hardly going too far to suspect that they would have applauded the government if it had suppressed the ,gnostic sects whom they hated and calumniated4 ,in any case1 when a ,christian ,state was established1 they would completely forget the principle which they #ej had invoked4 ,the martyrs died for conscience1 but not for liberty4 ,to-day the greatest of the ,churches demands freedom of conscience in the modern ,states which she does not control1 but refuses to admit that1 where she had the power1 it would be incumbent on her to concede it4 ,if we review the history of classical antiquity as a whole1 we may almost say that freedom of thought was like the air men breathed4 ,it was taken for granted and nobody thought about it4 ,if seven or eight thinkers at ,athens were penalized for heterodoxy1 in some and perhaps in most of these cases heterodoxy was only a pretext4 ,they do not invalidate the general facts that the advance of knowledge was not impeded by prejudice1 or science retarded by the weight of unscientific authority4 ,the educated ,greeks were tolerant because they were friends of reason and did not set up any authority to overrule reason4 ,opinions were not imposed except by argument2 you were not expected to receive some 8kingdom of heaven0 like a little child1 or to prostrate your intellect before an authority claiming to be infallible4 ,but this liberty was not the result of a conscious policy or deliberate conviction1 and therefore it was precarious4 ,the problems #ea of freedom of thought1 religious liberty1 toleration1 had not been forced upon society and were never seriously considered4 ,when ,christianity confronted the ,roman government1 no one saw that in the treatment of a small1 obscure1 and1 to pagan thinkers1 uninteresting or repugnant sect1 a principle of the deepest social importance was involved4 ,a long experience of the theory and practice of persecution was required to base securely the theory of freedom of thought4 ,the lurid policy of coercion which the ,christian ,church adopted1 and its consequences1 would at last compel reason to wrestle with the problem and discover the justification of intellectual liberty4 ,the spirit of the ,greeks and ,romans1 alive in their works1 would1 after a long period of obscuration1 again enlighten the world and aid in re-establishing the reign of reason1 which they had carelessly enjoyed without assuring its foundations4 #a ,this has been shown very clearly by ,professor ,jackson in the article on 8,socrates0 in the ,encyclopoedia ,britannica1 last edition4 #b ,he stated the theological difficulty as to the origin of evil in this form3 ,god either wishes to abolish evil and cannot1 or can and will not1 or neither can nor will1 or both can and will4 ,the first three are unthinkable1 if he is a ,god worthy of the name2 therefore the last alternative must be true4 ,why then does evil exist8 ,the inference is that there is no ,god1 in the sense of a governor of the world4 #c ,an admirable appreciation of the poem will be found in ,r4 ,v4 ,tyrrell's ,lectures on ,latin ,poetry4 #d ,for the evidence of the ,apologists see ,a4 ,bouch-,leclercq1 ,religious ,intolerance and ,politics 7,french1 #aiaa7 --a valuable review of the whole subject4 #e ,this is ,gibbon's translation4 ,,chapter ,,iii ,,reason ,,in ,,prison 7,,the ,,middle ,,ages7 ,,about ten years after the ,edict of ,toleration1 ,constantine the ,great adopted ,christianity4 ,this momentous decision inaugurated #eb a millennium in which reason was enchained1 thought was enslaved1 and knowledge made no progress4 ,during the two centuries in which they had been a forbidden sect the ,christians had claimed toleration on the ground that religious belief is voluntary and not a thing which can be enforced4 ,when their faith became the predominant creed and had the power of the ,state behind it1 they abandoned this view4 ,they embarked on the hopeful enterprise of bringing about a complete uniformity in men's opinions on the mysteries of the universe1 and began a more or less definite policy of coercing thought4 ,this policy was adopted by ,emperors and ,governments partly on political grounds2 religious divisions1 bitter as they were1 seemed dangerous to the unity of the ,state4 ,but the fundamental principle lay in the doctrine that salvation is to be found exclusively in the ,christian ,church4 ,the profound conviction that those who did not believe in its doctrines would be damned eternally1 and that ,god punishes theological error as if it were the most heinous of crimes1 led naturally to persecution4 ,it was a duty to impose on men the only true doctrine1 seeing that their own eternal interests were at stake1 and to hinder errors from spreading4 ,heretics were more #ec than ordinary criminals and the pains that man could inflict on them were as nothing to the tortures awaiting them in hell4 ,to rid the earth of men who1 however virtuous1 were1 through their religious errors1 enemies of the ,almighty1 was a plain duty4 ,their virtues were no excuse4 ,we must remember that1 according to the humane doctrine of the ,christians1 pagan1 that is1 merely human1 virtues were vices1 and infants who died unbaptized passed the rest of time in creeping on the floor of hell4 ,the intolerance arising from such views could not but differ in kind and intensity from anything that the world had yet witnessed4 ,besides the logic of its doctrines1 the character of its ,sacred ,book must also be held partly accountable for the intolerant principles of the ,christian ,church4 ,it was unfortunate that the early ,christians had included in their ,scripture the ,jewish writings which reflect the ideas of a low stage of civilization and are full of savagery4 ,it would be difficult to say how much harm has been done1 in corrupting the morals of men1 by the precepts and examples of inhumanity1 violence1 and bigotry which the reverent reader of the ,old ,testament1 implicitly believing in its inspiration1 is bound to approve4 ,it furnished an armoury for the theory of #ed persecution4 ,the truth is that ,sacred ,books are an obstacle to moral and intellectual progress1 because they consecrate the ideas of a given epoch1 and its customs1 as divinely appointed4 ,christianity1 by adopting books of a long past age1 placed in the path of human development a particularly nasty stumbling-block4 ,it may occur to one to wonder how history might have been altered --altered it surely would have been--if the ,christians had cut ,jehovah out of their programme and1 content with the ,new ,testament1 had rejected the inspiration of the ,old4 ,under ,constantine the ,great and his successors1 edict after edict fulminated against the worship of the old pagan gods and against heretical ,christian sects4 ,julian the ,apostate1 who in his brief reign 7,a4,d4 #cfa-c7 sought to revive the old order of things1 proclaimed universal toleration1 but he placed ,christians at a disadvantage by forbidding them to teach in schools4 ,this was only a momentary check4 ,paganism was finally shattered by the severe laws of ,theodosius ,i 7end of fourth century74 ,it lingered on here and there for more than another century1 especially at ,rome and ,athens1 but had little importance4 ,the ,christians were more concerned in striving among themselves than in #ee crushing the prostrate spirit of antiquity4 ,the execution of the heretic ,priscillian in ,spain 7fourth century7 inaugurated the punishment of heresy by death4 ,it is interesting to see a non-,christian of this age teaching the ,christian sects that they should suffer one another4 ,themistius in an address to the ,emperor ,valens urged him to repeal his edicts against the ,christians with whom he did not agree1 and expounded a theory of toleration4 8,the religious beliefs of individuals are a field in which the authority of a government cannot be effective2 compliance can only lead to hypocritical professions4 ,every faith should be allowed2 the civil government should govern orthodox and heterodox to the common good4 ,god himself plainly shows that he wishes various forms of worship2 there are many roads by which one can reach him40 ,no father of the ,church has been more esteemed or enjoyed higher authority than ,st4 ,augustine 7died ,a4,d4 #daj74 ,he formulated the principle of persecution for the guidance of future generations1 basing it on the firm foundation of ,scripture--on words used by ,jesus ,christ in one of his parables1 8,compel them to come in40 ,till the end of the twelfth century the ,church worked hard to suppress heterodoxies4 ,there was much #ef persecution1 but it was not systematic4 ,there is reason to think that in the pursuit of heresy the ,church was mainly guided by considerations of its temporal interest1 and was roused to severe action only when the spread of false doctrine threatened to reduce its revenues or seemed a menace to society4 ,at the end of the twelfth century ,innocent ,,iii became ,pope and under him the ,church of ,western ,europe reached the height of its power4 ,he and his immediate successors are responsible for imagining and beginning an organized movement to sweep heretics out of ,christendom4 ,languedoc in ,southwestern ,france was largely populated by heretics1 whose opinions were considered particularly offensive1 known as the ,albigeois4 ,they were the subjects of the ,count of ,toulouse1 and were an industrious and respectable people4 ,but the ,church got far too little money out of this anti- clerical population1 and ,innocent called upon the ,count to extirpate heresy from his dominion4 ,as he would not obey1 the ,pope announced a ,crusade against the ,albigeois1 and offered to all who would bear a hand the usual rewards granted to ,crusaders1 including absolution from all their sins4 ,a series of sanguinary wars followed in which the ,englishman1 ,simon de ,montfort1 took part4 ,there were #eg wholesale burnings and hangings of men1 women and children4 ,the resistance of the people was broken down1 though the heresy was not eradicated1 and the struggle ended in #abbi with the complete humiliation of the ,count of ,toulouse4 ,the important point of the episode is this3 the ,church introduced into the public law of ,europe the new principle that a sovran held his crown on the condition that he should extirpate heresy4 ,if he hesitated to persecute at the command of the ,pope1 he must be coerced2 his lands were forfeited2 and his dominions were thrown open to be seized by any one whom the ,church could induce to attack him4 ,the ,popes thus established a theocratic system in which all other interests were to be subordinated to the grand duty of maintaining the purity of the ,faith4 ,but in order to root out heresy it was necessary to discover it in its most secret retreats4 ,the ,albigeois had been crushed1 but the poison of their doctrine was not yet destroyed4 ,the organized system of searching out heretics known as the ,inquisition was founded by ,pope ,gregory ,,ix about ,a4,d4 #abcc1 and fully established by a ,bull of ,innocent ,,iv 7,a4,d4 #abeb7 which regulated the machinery of persecution 8as an integral part of the social edifice in every city and every #eh ,state40 ,this powerful engine for the suppression of the freedom of men's religious opinions is unique in history4 ,the bishops were not equal to the new talk undertaken by the ,church1 and in every ecclesiastical province suitable monks were selected and to them was delegated the authority of the ,pope for discovering heretics4 ,these inquisitors had unlimited authority1 they were subject to no supervision and responsible to no man4 ,it would not have been easy to establish this system but for the fact that contemporary secular rulers had inaugurated independently a merciless legislation against heresy4 ,the ,emperor ,frederick ,,ii1 who was himself undoubtedly a freethinker1 made laws for his extensive dominions in ,italy and ,germany 7between #abbj and #abce71 enacting that all heretics should be outlawed1 that those who did not recant should be burned1 those who recanted should be imprisoned1 but if they relapsed should be executed2 that their property should be confiscated1 their houses destroyed1 and their children1 to the second generation1 ineligible to positions of emolument unless they had betrayed their father or some other heretic4 ,frederick's legislation consecrated the stake as the proper punishment for heresy4 ,this #ei cruel form of death for that crime seems to have been first inflicted on heretics by a ,french king 7#ajag74 ,we must remember that in the ,middle ,ages1 and much later1 crimes of all kinds were punished with the utmost cruelty4 ,in ,england in the reign of ,henry ,,viii there is a case of prisoners being boiled to death4 ,heresy was the foulest of all crimes2 and to prevail against it was to prevail against the legions of hell4 ,the cruel enactments against heretics were strongly supported by the public opinion of the masses4 ,when the ,inquisition was fully developed it covered ,western ,christendom with a net from the meshes of which it was difficult for a heretic to escape4 ,the inquisitors in the various kingdoms co-operated1 and communicated information2 there was 8a chain of tribunals throughout continental ,europe40 ,england stood outside the system1 but from the age of ,henry ,,iv and ,henry ,v the government repressed heresy by the stake under a special statute 7,a4,d4 #adjj2 repealed #aecc2 revived under ,mary2 finally repealed in #afgf74 ,in its task of imposing unity of belief the ,inquisition was most successful in ,spain4 ,here towards the end of the fifteenth century a system was instituted which had peculiarities of its own and was very jealous of #fj ,roman interference4 ,one of the achievements of the ,spanish ,inquisition 7which was not abolished till the nineteenth century7 was to expel the ,moriscos or converted ,moors1 who retained many of their old ,mohammedan opinions and customs4 ,it is also said to have eradicated ,judaism and to have preserved the country from the zeal of ,protestant missionaries4 ,but it cannot be proved that it deserves the credit of having protected ,spain against ,protestantism1 for it is quite possible that if the seeds of ,protestant opinion had been sown they would1 in any case1 have fallen dead on an uncongenial soil4 ,freedom of thought however was entirely suppressed4 ,one of the most efficacious means for hunting down heresy was the 8,edict of ,faith10 which enlisted the people in the service of the ,inquisition and required every man to be an informer4 ,from time to time a certain district was visited and an edict issued commanding those who knew anything of any heresy to come forward and reveal it1 under fearful penalties temporal and spiritual4 ,in consequence1 no one was free from the suspicion of his neighbours or even of his own family4 8,no more ingenious device has been invented to subjugate a whole population1 to paralyze its intellect1 and to reduce it #fa to blind obedience4 ,it elevated delation to the rank of high religious duty40 ,the process employed in the trials of those accused of heresy in ,spain rejected every reasonable means for the ascertainment of truth4 ,the prisoner was assumed to be guilty1 the burden of proving his innocence rested on him2 his judge was virtually his prosecutor4 ,all witnesses against him1 however infamous1 were admitted4 ,the rules for allowing witnesses for the prosecution were lax2 those for rejecting witnesses for the defence were rigid4 ,jews1 ,moriscos1 and servants could give evidence against the prisoner but not for him1 and the same rule applied to kinsmen to the fourth degree4 ,the principle on which the ,inquisition proceeded was that better a hundred innocent should suffer than one guilty person escape4 ,indulgences were granted to any one who contributed wood to the pile4 ,but the tribunal of the ,inquisition did not itself condemn to the stake1 for the ,church must not be guilty of the shedding of blood4 ,the ecclesiastical judge pronounced the prisoner to be a heretic of whose conversion there was no hope1 and handed him over 78relaxed0 him was the official term7 to the secular authority1 asking and charging the magistrate 8to treat him benignantly and mercifully40 ,but this #fb formal plea for mercy could not be entertained by the civil power2 it had no choice but to inflict death2 if it did otherwise1 it was a promoter of heresy4 ,all princes and officials1 according to the ,canon ,law1 must punish duly and promptly heretics handed over to them by the ,inquisition1 under pain of excommunication4 ,it is to be noted that the number of deaths at the stake has been much over-estimated by popular imagination2 but the sum of suffering caused by the methods of the system and the punishments that fell short of death can hardly be exaggerated4 ,the legal processes employed by the ,church in these persecutions exercised a corrupting influence on the criminal jurisprudence of the ,continent4 ,lea1 the historian of the ,inquisition1 observes3 8,of all the curses which the ,inquisition brought in its train1 this perhaps was the greatest--that1 until the closing years of the eighteenth century1 throughout the greater part of ,europe1 the inquisitorial process1 as developed for the destruction of heresy1 became the customary method of dealing with all who were under any accusation40 ,the ,inquisitors who1 as ,gibbon says1 8defended nonsense by cruelties10 are often regarded as monsters4 ,it may be said for them and for the kings who did their will that #fc they were not a bit worse than the priests and monarchs of primitive ages who sacrificed human beings to their deities4 ,the ,greek king1 ,agamemnon1 who immolated his daughter ,iphigenia to obtain favourable winds from the gods1 was perhaps a most affectionate father1 and the seer who advised him to do so may have been a man of high integrity4 ,they acted according to their beliefs4 ,and so in the ,middle ,ages and afterwards men of kindly temper and the purest zeal for morality were absolutely devoid of mercy where heresy was suspected4 ,hatred of heresy was a sort of infectious germ1 generated by the doctrine of exclusive salvation4 ,it has been observed that this dogma also injured the sense of truth4 ,as man's eternal fate was at stake1 it seemed plainly legitimate or rather imperative to use any means to enforce the true belief--even falsehood and imposture4 ,there was no scruple about the invention of miracles or any fictions that were edifying4 ,a disinterested appreciation of truth will not begin to prevail till the seventeenth century4 ,while this principle1 with the associated doctrines of sin1 hell1 and the last judgment1 led to such consequences1 there were other doctrines and implications in ,christianity which1 forming a solid rampart against the #fd advance of knowledge1 blocked the paths of science in the ,middle ,ages1 and obstructed its progress till the latter half of the nineteenth century4 ,in every important field of scientific research1 the ground was occupied by false views which the ,church declared to be true on the infallible authority of the ,bible4 ,the ,jewish account of ,creation and the ,fall of ,man1 inextricably bound up with the ,christian theory of ,redemption1 excluded from free inquiry geology1 zoology1 and anthropology4 ,the literal interpretation of the ,bible involved the truth that the sun revolves round the earth4 ,the ,church condemned the theory of the antipodes4 ,one of the charges against ,servetus 7who was burned in the sixteenth century2 see below1 p4 #gi7 was that he believed the statement of a ,greek geographer that ,judea is a wretched barren country in spite of the fact that the ,bible describes it as a land flowing with milk and honey4 ,the ,greek physician ,hippocrates had based the study of medicine and disease on experience and methodical research4 ,in the ,middle ,ages men relapsed to the primitive notions of a barbarous age4 ,bodily ailments were ascribed to occult agencies--the malice of the ,devil or the wrath of ,god4 ,st4 ,augustine said that the diseases of ,christians were caused by demons1 #fe and ,luther in the same way attributed them to ,satan4 ,it was only logical that supernatural remedies should be sought to counteract the effects of supernatural causes4 ,there was an immense traffic in relics with miraculous virtues1 and this had the advantage of bringing in a large revenue to the ,church4 ,physicians were often exposed to suspicions of sorcery and unbelief4 ,anatomy was forbidden1 partly perhaps on account of the doctrine of the resurrection of the body4 ,the opposition of ecclesiastics to inoculation in the eighteenth century was a survival of the mediaeval view of disease4 ,chemistry 7alchemy7 was considered a diabolical art and in #acag was condemned by the ,pope4 ,the long imprisonment of ,roger ,bacon 7thirteenth century7 who1 while he professed zeal for orthodoxy1 had an inconvenient instinct for scientific research1 illustrates the mediaeval distrust of science4 ,it is possible that the knowledge of nature would have progressed little1 even if this distrust of science on theological grounds had not prevailed4 ,for ,greek science had ceased to advance five hundred years before ,christianity became powerful4 ,after about #bjj ,b4,c4 no important discoveries were made4 ,the explanation of this decay is not easy1 but we may be sure that it is to be sought in the #ff social conditions of the ,greek and ,roman world4 ,and we may suspect that the social conditions of the ,middle ,ages would have proved unfavourable to the scientific spirit-- the disinterested quest of facts--even if the controlling beliefs had not been hostile4 ,we may suspect that the rebirth of science would in any case have been postponed till new social conditions1 which began to appear in the thirteenth century 7see next ,chapter71 had reached a certain maturity4 ,theological prejudice may have injured knowledge principally by its survival after the ,middle ,ages had passed away4 ,in other words1 the harm done by ,christian doctrines1 in this respect1 may lie less in the obscurantism of the dark interval between ancient and modern civilization1 than in the obstructions which they offered when science had revived in spite of them and could no longer be crushed4 ,the firm belief in witchcraft1 magic1 and demons was inherited by the ,middle ,ages from antiquity1 but it became far more lurid and made the world terrible4 ,men believed that they were surrounded by fiends watching for every opportunity to harm them1 that pestilences1 storms1 eclipses1 and famines were the work of the ,devil2 but they believed as firmly that ecclesiastical rites were capable of coping with these enemies4 ,some of the #fg early ,christian ,emperors legislated against magic1 but till the fourteenth century there was no systematic attempt to root out witchcraft4 ,the fearful epidemic1 known as the ,black ,death1 which devastated ,europe in that century1 seems to have aggravated the haunting terror of the invisible world of demons4 ,trials for witchcraft multiplied1 and for three hundred years the discovery of witchcraft and the destruction of those who were accused of practising it1 chiefly women1 was a standing feature of ,european civilization4 ,both the theory and the persecution were supported by ,holy ,scripture4 8,thou shalt not suffer a witch to live0 was the clear injunction of the highest authority4 ,pope ,innocent ,,viii issued a ,bull on the matter 7#adhd7 in which he asserted that plagues and storms are the work of witches1 and the ablest minds believed in the reality of their devilish powers4 ,no story is more painful than the persecution of witches1 and nowhere was it more atrocious than in ,england and ,scotland4 ,i mention it because it was the direct result of theological doctrines1 and because1 as we shall see1 it was rationalism which brought the long chapter of horrors to an end4 ,in the period1 then1 in which the ,church exercised its greatest influence1 reason was #fh enchained in the prison which ,christianity had built around the human mind4 ,it was not indeed inactive1 but its activity took the form of heresy2 or1 to pursue the metaphor1 those who broke chains were unable for the most part to scale the walls of the prison2 their freedom extended only so far as to arrive at beliefs1 which1 like orthodoxy itself1 were based on ,christian mythology4 ,there were some exceptions to the rule4 ,at the end of the twelfth century a stimulus from another world began to make itself felt4 ,the philosophy of ,aristotle became known to learned men in ,western ,christendom2 their teachers were ,jews and ,mohammedans4 ,among the ,mohammedans there was a certain amount of free thought1 provoked by their knowledge of ancient ,greek speculation4 ,the works of the freethinker ,averroes 7twelfth century7 which were based on ,aristotle's philosophy1 propagated a small wave of rationalism in ,christian countries4 ,averroes held the eternity of matter and denied the immortality of the soul2 his general view may be described as pantheism4 ,but he sought to avoid difficulties with the orthodox authorities of ,islam by laying down the doctrine of double truth1 that is the coexistence of two independent and contradictory truths1 the one philosophical1 and the other religious4 ,this #fi did not save him from being banished from the court of the ,spanish caliph4 ,in the ,university of ,paris his teaching produced a school of freethinkers who held that the ,creation1 the resurrection of the body1 and other essential dogmas1 might be true from the standpoint of religion but are false from the standpoint of reason4 ,to a plain mind this seems much as if one said that the doctrine of immortality is true on ,sundays but not on week-days1 or that the ,apostles' ,creed is false in the drawing-room and true in the kitchen4 ,this dangerous movement was crushed1 and the saving principle of double truth condemned1 by ,pope ,john ,,xxi4 ,the spread of ,averroistic and similar speculations called forth the ,theology of ,thomas1 of ,aquino in ,south ,italy 7died #abgd71 a most subtle thinker1 whose mind had a natural turn for scepticism4 ,he enlisted ,aristotle1 hitherto the guide of infidelity1 on the side of orthodoxy1 and constructed an ingenious ,christian philosophy which is still authoritative in the ,roman ,church4 ,but ,aristotle and reason are dangerous allies for faith1 and the treatise of ,thomas is perhaps more calculated to unsettle a believing mind by the doubts which it powerfully states than to quiet the scruples of a doubter by its solutions4 ,there must always have been some private #gj and underground unbelief here and there1 which did not lead to any serious consequences4 ,the blasphemous statement that the world had been deceived by three impostors1 ,moses1 ,jesus1 and ,mohammed1 was current in the thirteenth century4 ,it was attributed to the freethinking ,emperor ,frederick ,,ii 7died #abej71 who has been described as 8the first modern man40 ,the same idea1 in a milder form1 was expressed in the story of the ,three ,rings1 which is at least as old4 ,a ,mohammedan ruler1 desiring to extort money from a rich ,jew1 summoned him to his court and laid a snare for him4 8,my friend10 he said1 8,i have often heard it reported that thou art a very wise man4 ,tell me therefore which of the three religions1 that of the ,jews1 that of the ,mohammedans1 and that of the ,christians1 thou believest to be the truest40 ,the ,jew saw that a trap was laid for him and answered as follows3 8,my lord1 there was once a rich man who among his treasures had a ring of such great value that he wished to leave it as a perpetual heirloom to his successors4 ,so he made a will that whichever of his sons should be found in possession of this ring after his death should be considered his heir4 ,the son to whom he gave the ring acted in the same way as his father1 and so the ring passed from hand to #ga hand4 ,at last it came into the possession of a man who had three sons whom he loved equally4 ,unable to make up his mind to which of them he should leave the ring1 he promised it to each of them privately1 and then in order to satisfy them all caused a goldsmith to make two other rings so closely resembling the true ring that he was unable to distinguish them himself4 ,on his death-bed he gave each of them a ring1 and each claimed to be his heir1 but no one could prove his title because the rings were indistinguishable1 and the suit at law lasts till this day4 ,it is even so1 my lord1 with the three religions1 given by ,god to the three peoples4 ,they each think they have the true religion1 but which of them really has it1 is a question1 like that of the rings1 still undecided40 ,this sceptical story became famous in the eighteenth century1 when the ,german poet1 ,lessing1 built upon it his drama ,nathan the ,sage1 which was intended to show the unreasonableness of intolerance4 ,,chapter ,,iv ,,prospect ,,of ,,deliverance 7,,the ,,renaissance ,,and ,,the ,,reformation7 ,,the intellectual and social movement which was to dispel the darkness of the #gb ,middle ,ages and prepare the way for those who would ultimately deliver reason from her prison1 began in ,italy in the thirteenth century4 ,the misty veil woven of credulity and infantile navet which had hung over men's souls and protected them from understanding either themselves or their relation to the world began to lift4 ,the individual began to feel his separate individuality1 to be conscious of his own value as a person apart from his race or country 7as in the later ages of ,greece and ,rome72 and the world around him began to emerge from the mists of mediaeval dreams4 ,the change was due to the political and social conditions of the little ,italian ,states1 of which some were republics and others governed by tyrants4 ,to the human world1 thus unveiling itself1 the individual who sought to make it serve his purposes required a guide2 and the guide was found in the ancient literature of ,greece and ,rome4 ,hence the whole transformation1 which presently extended from ,italy to ,northern ,europe1 is known as the ,renaissance1 or rebirth of classical antiquity4 ,but the awakened interest in classical literature while it coloured the character and stimulated the growth of the movement1 supplying new ideals and suggesting new points of view1 was only the form in which the change of spirit #gc began to express itself in the fourteenth century4 ,the change might conceivably have taken some other shape4 ,its true name is ,humanism4 ,at the time men hardly felt that they were passing into a new age of civilization1 nor did the culture of the ,renaissance immediately produce any open or general intellectual rebellion against orthodox beliefs4 ,the world was gradually assuming an aspect decidedly unfriendly to the teaching of mediaeval orthodoxy2 but there was no explosion of hostility2 it was not till the seventeenth century that war between religion and authority was systematically waged4 ,the humanists were not hostile to theological authority or to the claims of religious dogma2 but they had discovered a purely human curiosity about this world and it absorbed their interest4 ,they idolized pagan literature which abounded in poisonous germs2 the secular side of education became all-important2 religion and theology were kept in a separate compartment4 ,some speculative minds1 which were sensitive to the contradiction1 might seek to reconcile the old religion with new ideas2 but the general tendency of thinkers in the ,renaissance period was to keep the two worlds distinct1 and to practise outward conformity to the creed without any real intellectual submission4 #gd ,i may illustrate this double-facedness of the ,renaissance by ,montaigne 7second half of sixteenth century74 ,his ,essays make for rationalism1 but contain frequent professions of orthodox ,catholicism1 in which he was perfectly sincere4 ,there is no attempt to reconcile the two points of view2 in fact1 he takes the sceptical position that there is no bridge between reason and religion4 ,the human intellect is incapable in the domain of theology1 and religion must be placed aloft1 out of reach and beyond the interference of reason2 to be humbly accepted4 ,but while he humbly accepted it1 on sceptical grounds which would have induced him to accept ,mohammadanism if he had been born in ,cairo1 his soul was not in its dominion4 ,it was the philosophers and wise men of antiquity1 ,cicero1 and ,seneca1 and ,plutarch1 who moulded and possessed his mind4 ,it is to them1 and not to the consolations of ,christianity1 that he turns when he discusses the problem of death4 ,the religious wars in ,france which he witnessed and the ,massacre of ,st4 ,bartholomew's ,day 7#aegb7 were calculated to confirm him in his scepticism4 ,his attitude to persecution is expressed in the remark that 8it is setting a high value on one's opinions to roast men on account of them40 ,the logical results of ,montaigne's scepticism #ge were made visible by his friend ,charron1 who published a book ,on ,wisdom in #afja4 ,here it is taught that true morality is not founded on religion1 and the author surveys the history of ,christianity to show the evils which it had produced4 ,he says of immortality that it is the most generally received doctrine1 the most usefully believed1 and the most weakly established by human reasons2 but he modified this and some other passages in a second edition4 ,a contemporary ,jesuit placed ,charron in the catalogue of the most dangerous and wicked atheists4 ,he was really a deist2 but in those days1 and long after1 no one scrupled to call a non- ,christian deist an atheist4 ,his book would doubtless have been suppressed and he would have suffered but for the support of ,king ,henry ,,iv4 ,it has a particular interest because it transports us directly from the atmosphere of the ,renaissance1 represented by ,montaigne1 into the new age of more or less aggressive rationalism4 ,what ,humanism did in the fourteenth1 fifteenth1 and sixteenth centuries1 at first in ,italy1 then in other countries1 was to create an intellectual atmosphere in which the emancipation of reason could begin and knowledge could resume its progress4 ,the period saw the invention of printing and #gf the discovery of new parts of the globe1 and these things were to aid powerfully in the future defeat of authority4 ,but the triumph of freedom depended on other causes also2 it was not to be brought about by the intellect alone4 ,the chief political facts of the period were the decline of the power of the ,pope in ,europe1 the decay of the ,holy ,roman ,empire1 and the growth of strong monarchies1 in which worldly interests determined and dictated ecclesiastical policy1 and from which the modern ,state was to develop4 ,the success of the ,reformation was made possible by these conditions4 ,its victory in ,north ,germany was due to the secular interest of the princes1 who profited by the confiscation of ,church lands4 ,in ,england there was no popular movement2 the change was carried through by the government for its own purposes4 ,the principal cause of the ,reformation was the general corruption of the ,church and the flagrancy of its oppression4 ,for a long time the ,papacy had had no higher aim than to be a secular power exploiting its spiritual authority for the purpose of promoting its worldly interests1 by which it was exclusively governed4 ,all the ,european ,states based their diplomacy on this assumption4 ,since the fourteenth century every one acknowledged #gg the need of reforming the ,church1 and reform had been promised1 but things went from bad to worse1 and there was no resource but rebellion4 ,the rebellion led by ,luther was the result not of a revolt of reason against dogmas1 but of widely spread anti-clerical feeling due to the ecclesiastical methods of extorting money1 particularly by the sale of ,indulgences1 the most glaring abuse of the time4 ,it was his study of the theory of ,papal ,indulgences that led ,luther on to his theological heresies4 ,it is an elementary error1 but one which is still shared by many people who have read history superficially1 that the ,reformation established religious liberty and the right of private judgment4 ,what it did was to bring about a new set of political and social conditions1 under which religious liberty could ultimately be secured1 and1 by virtue of its inherent inconsistencies1 to lead to results at which its leaders would have shuddered4 ,but nothing was further from the minds of the leading ,reformers than the toleration of doctrines differing from their own4 ,they replaced one authority by another4 ,they set up the authority of the ,bible instead of that of the ,church1 but it was the ,bible according to ,luther or the ,bible according to ,calvin4 ,so far as the spirit of intolerance went1 there #gh was nothing to choose between the new and the old ,churches4 ,the religious wars were not for the cause of freedom1 but for particular sets of doctrines2 and in ,france1 if the ,protestants had been victorious1 it is certain that they would not have given more liberal terms to the ,catholics than the ,catholics gave to them4 ,luther was quite opposed to liberty of conscience and worship1 a doctrine which was inconsistent with ,scripture as he read it4 ,he might protest against coercion and condemn the burning of heretics1 when he was in fear that he and his party might be victims1 but when he was safe and in power1 he asserted his real view that it was the duty of the ,state to impose the true doctrine and exterminate heresy1 which was an abomination1 that unlimited obedience to their prince in religious as in other matters was the duty of subjects1 and that the end of the ,state was to defend the faith4 ,he held that ,anabaptists should be put to the sword4 ,with ,protestants and ,catholics alike the dogma of exclusive salvation led to the same place4 ,calvin's fame for intolerance is blackest4 ,he did not1 like ,luther1 advocate the absolute power of the civil ruler2 he stood for the control of the ,state by the ,church--a form of government which is commonly called theocracy2 #gi and he established a theocracy at ,geneva4 ,here liberty was completely crushed2 false doctrines were put down by imprisonment1 exile1 and death4 ,the punishment of ,servetus is the most famous exploit of ,calvin's warfare against heresy4 ,the ,spaniard ,servetus1 who had written against the dogma of the ,trinity1 was imprisoned at ,lyons 7partly through the machinations of ,calvin7 and having escaped came rashly to ,geneva4 ,he was tried for heresy and committed to the flames 7#aeec71 though ,geneva had no jurisdiction over him4 ,melanchthon1 who formulated the principles of persecution1 praised this act as a memorable example to posterity4 ,posterity however was one day to be ashamed of that example4 ,in #aijc the ,calvinists of ,geneva felt impelled to erect an expiatory monument1 in which ,calvin 8our great ,reformer0 is excused as guilty of an error 8which was that of his century40 ,thus the ,reformers1 like the ,church from which they parted1 cared nothing for freedom1 they only cared for 8truth40 ,if the mediaeval ideal was to purge the world of heretics1 the object of the ,protestant was to exclude all dissidents from his own land4 ,the people at large were to be driven into a fold1 to accept their faith at the command of their sovran4 ,this was the principle laid down in the #hj religious peace which 7#aeee7 composed the struggle between the ,catholic ,emperor and the ,protestant ,german princes4 ,it was recognized by ,catherine de' ,medici when she massacred the ,french ,protestants and signified to ,queen ,elizabeth that she might do likewise with ,english ,catholics4 ,nor did the ,protestant creeds represent enlightenment4 ,the ,reformation on the ,continent was as hostile to enlightenment as it was to liberty2 and science1 if it seemed to contradict the ,bible1 has as little chance with ,luther as with the ,pope4 ,the ,bible1 interpreted by the ,protestants or the ,roman ,church1 was equally fatal to witches4 ,in ,germany the development of learning received a long set-back4 ,yet the ,reformation involuntarily helped the cause of liberty4 ,the result was contrary to the intentions of its leaders1 was indirect1 and long delayed4 ,in the first place1 the great rent in ,western ,christianity1 substituting a number of theological authorities instead of one--several gods1 we may say1 instead of one ,god--produced a weakening of ecclesiastical authority in general4 ,the religious tradition was broken4 ,in the second place1 in the ,protestant ,states1 the supreme ecclesiastical power was vested in the sovran2 the sovran had other interests besides those of #ha the ,church to consider2 and political reasons would compel him sooner or later to modify the principle of ecclesiastical intolerance4 ,catholic ,states in the same way were forced to depart from the duty of not suffering heretics4 ,the religious wars in ,france ended in a limited toleration of ,protestants4 ,the policy of ,cardinal ,richelieu1 who supported the ,protestant cause in ,germany1 illustrates how secular interests obstructed the cause of faith4 ,again1 the intellectual justification of the ,protestant rebellion against the ,church had been the right of private judgment1 that is1 the principle of religious liberty4 ,but the ,reformers had asserted it only for themselves1 and as soon as they had framed their own articles of faith1 they had practically repudiated it4 ,this was the most glaring inconsistency in the ,protestant position2 and the claim which they had thrust aside could not be permanently suppressed4 ,once more1 the ,protestant doctrines rested on an insecure foundation which no logic could defend1 and inevitably led from one untenable position to another4 ,if we are to believe on authority1 why should we prefer the upstart dictation of the ,lutheran ,confession of ,augsburg or the ,english ,thirty- nine ,articles to the venerable authority of the ,church of ,rome8 ,if we decide against ,rome1 we must do so by means #hb of reason2 but once we exercise reason in the matter1 why should we stop where ,luther or ,calvin or any of the other rebels stopped1 unless we assume that one of them was inspired8 ,if we reject superstitions which they rejected1 there is nothing except their authority to prevent us from rejecting all or some of the superstitions which they retained4 ,moreover1 their ,bible-worship promoted results which they did not foresee4 #a ,the inspired record on which the creeds depend became an open book4 ,public attention was directed to it as never before1 though it cannot be said to have been universally read before the nineteenth century4 ,study led to criticism1 the difficulties of the dogma of inspiration were appreciated1 and the ,bible was ultimately to be submitted to a remorseless dissection which has altered at least the quality of its authority in the eyes of intelligent believers4 ,this process of ,biblical criticism has been conducted mainly in a ,protestant atmosphere and the new position in which the ,bible was placed by the ,reformation must be held partly accountable4 ,in these ways1 ,protestantism was adapted to be a stepping-stone to rationalism1 and thus served the cause of freedom4 #hc ,that cause however was powerfully and directly promoted by one sect of ,reformers1 who in the eyes of all the others were blasphemers and of whom most people never think when they talk of the ,reformation4 ,i mean the ,socinians4 ,of their far-reaching influence something will be said in the next chapter4 ,another result of the ,reformation has still to be mentioned1 its renovating effect on the ,roman ,church1 which had now to fight for its existence4 ,a new series of ,popes who were in earnest about religion began with ,paul ,,iii 7#aecd7 and reorganized the ,papacy and its resources for a struggle of centuries4 #b ,the institution of the ,jesuit order1 the establishment of the ,inquisition at ,rome1 the ,council of ,trent1 the censorship of the ,press 7,index of ,forbidden ,books7 were the expression of the new spirit and the means to cope with the new situation4 ,the reformed ,papacy was good fortune for believing children of the ,church1 but what here concerns us is that one of its chief objects was to repress freedom more effectually4 ,savonarola who preached right living at ,florence had been executed 7#adih7 under ,pope ,alexander ,,vi who was a notorious profligate4 ,if ,savonarola had lived #hd in the new era he might have been canonized1 but ,giordano ,bruno was burned4 ,giordano ,bruno had constructed a religious philosophy1 based partly upon ,epicurus1 from whom he took the theory of the infinity of the universe4 ,but ,epicurean materialism was transformed into a pantheistic mysticism by the doctrine that ,god is the soul of matter4 ,accepting the recent discovery of ,copernicus1 which ,catholics and ,protestants alike rejected1 that the earth revolves round the sun1 ,bruno took the further step of regarding the fixed stars as suns1 each with its invisible satellites4 ,he sought to come to an understanding with the ,bible1 which 7he held7 being intended for the vulgar had to accommodate itself to their prejudices4 ,leaving ,italy1 because he was suspected of heresy1 he lived successively in ,switzerland1 ,france1 ,england1 and ,germany1 and in #aeib1 induced by a false friend to return to ,venice he was seized by order of the ,inquisition4 ,finally condemned in ,rome1 he was burned 7#afjj7 in the ,campo de' ,fiori1 where a monument now stands in his honour1 erected some years ago1 to the great chagrin of the ,roman ,church4 ,much is made of the fate of ,bruno because he is one of the world's famous men4 ,no country has so illustrious a victim of that era to commemorate as ,italy1 but in other lands #he blood just as innocent was shed for heterodox opinions4 ,in ,france there was rather more freedom than elsewhere under the relatively tolerant government of ,henry ,,iv and of the ,cardinals ,richelieu and ,mazarin1 till about #affj4 ,but at ,toulouse 7#afai7 ,lucilio ,vanini1 a learned ,italian who like ,bruno wandered about ,europe1 was convicted as an atheist and blasphemer2 his tongue was torn out and he was burned4 ,protestant ,england1 under ,elizabeth and ,james ,i1 did not lag behind the ,roman ,inquisition1 but on account of the obscurity of the victims her zeal for faith has been unduly forgotten4 ,yet1 but for an accident1 she might have covered herself with the glory of having done to death a heretic not less famous than ,giordano ,bruno4 ,the poet ,marlowe was accused of atheism1 but while the prosecution was hanging over him he was killed in a sordid quarrel in a tavern 7#aeic74 ,another dramatist 7,kyd7 who was implicated in the charge was put to the torture4 ,at the same time ,sir ,walter ,raleigh was prosecuted for unbelief but not convicted4 ,others were not so fortunate4 ,three or four persons were burned at ,norwich in the reign of ,elizabeth for unchristian doctrines1 among them ,francis ,kett who had been a ,fellow of ,corpus ,christi1 ,cambridge4 ,under ,james ,i1 who #hf interested himself personally in such matters1 ,bartholomew ,legate was charged with holding various pestilent opinions4 ,the king summoned him to his presence and asked him whether he did not pray daily to ,jesus ,christ4 ,legate replied he had prayed to ,christ in the days of his ignorance1 but not for the last seven years4 8,away1 base fellow10 said ,james1 spurning him with his foot1 8it shall never be said that one stayeth in my palace that hath never prayed to our ,saviour for seven years together40 ,legate1 having been imprisoned for some time in ,newgate1 was declared an incorrigible heretic and burned at ,smithfield 7#afaa74 ,just a month later1 one ,wightman was burned at ,lichfield1 by the ,bishop of ,coventry1 for heterodox doctrines4 ,it is possible that public opinion was shocked by these two burnings4 ,they were the last cases in ,england of death for unbelief4 ,puritan intolerance1 indeed1 passed an ordinance in #afdh1 by which all who denied the ,trinity1 ,christ's divinity1 the inspiration of ,scripture1 or a future state1 were liable to death1 and persons guilty of other heresies1 to imprisonment4 ,but this did not lead to any executions4 ,the ,renaissance age saw the first signs of the beginning of modern science1 but the mediaeval prejudices against the investigation #hg of nature were not dissipated till the seventeenth century1 and in ,italy they continued to a much later period4 ,the history of modern astronomy begins in #aedc1 with the publication of the work of ,copernicus revealing the truth about the motions of the earth4 ,the appearance of this work is important in the history of free thought1 because it raised a clear and definite issue between science and ,scripture2 and ,osiander1 who edited it 7,copernicus was dying71 forseeing the outcry it would raise1 stated untruly in the preface that the earth's motion was put forward only as a hypothesis4 ,the theory was denounced by ,catholics and ,reformers1 and it did not convince some men 7e4g4 ,bacon7 who were not influenced by theological prejudice4 ,the observations of the ,italian astronomer ,galileo de' ,galilei demonstrated the ,copernican theory beyond question4 ,his telescope discovered the moons of ,jupiter1 and his observation of the spots in the sun confirmed the earth's rotation4 ,in the pulpits of ,florence1 where he lived under the protection of the ,grand ,duke1 his sensational discoveries were condemned4 8,men of ,galilee1 why stand ye gazing up into heaven80 ,he was then denounced to the ,holy ,office of the ,inquisition by two ,dominican monks4 ,learning that his investigations were being considered #hh at ,rome1 ,galileo went thither1 confident that he would be able to convince the ecclesiastical authorities of the manifest truth of ,copernicanism4 ,he did not realize what theology was capable of4 ,in ,february #afaf the ,holy ,office decided that the ,copernican system was in itself absurd1 and1 in respect of ,scripture1 heretical4 ,cardinal ,bellarmin1 by the ,pope's direction1 summoned ,galileo and officially admonished him to abandon his opinion and cease to teach it1 otherwise the ,inquisition would proceed against him4 ,galileo promised to obey4 ,the book of ,copernicus was placed on the ,index4 ,it has been remarked that ,galileo's book on ,solar ,spots contains no mention of ,scripture1 and thus the ,holy ,office1 in its decree which related to that book1 passed judgment on a scientific1 not a theological1 question4 ,galileo was silenced for a while1 but it was impossible for him to be mute for ever4 ,under a new ,pope 7,urban ,,viii7 he looked for greater liberty1 and there were many in the ,papal circle who were well disposed to him4 ,he hoped to avoid difficulties by the device of placing the arguments for the old and the new theories side by side1 and pretending not to judge between them4 ,he wrote a treatise on the two systems 7the ,ptolemaic and the ,copernican7 in the form #hi of ,dialogues1 of which the preface declares that the purpose is to explain the pros and cons of the two views4 ,but the spirit of the work is ,copernican4 ,he received permission1 quite definite as he thought1 from ,father ,riccardi 7master of the ,sacred ,palace7 to print it1 and it appeared in #afcb4 ,the ,pope however disapproved of it1 the book was examined by a commission1 and ,galileo was summoned before the ,inquisition4 ,he was old and ill1 and the humiliations which he had to endure are a painful story4 ,he would probably have been more severely treated1 if one of the members of the tribunal had not been a man of scientific training 7,macolano1 a ,dominican71 who was able to appreciate his ability4 ,under examination1 ,galileo denied that he had upheld the motion of the earth in the ,dialogues1 and asserted that he had shown the reasons of ,copernicus to be inconclusive4 ,this defence was in accordance with the statement in his preface1 but contradicted his deepest conviction4 ,in struggling with such a tribunal1 it was the only line which a man who was not a hero could take4 ,at a later session1 he forced himself ignominiously to confess that some of the arguments on the ,copernican side had been put too strongly and to declare himself ready to confute the #ij theory4 ,in the final examination1 he was threatened with torture4 ,he said that before the decree of #afaf he had held the truth of the ,copernican system to be arguable1 but since then he had held the ,ptolemaic to be true4 ,next day1 he publicly abjured the scientific truth which he had demonstrated4 ,he was allowed to retire to the country1 on condition that he saw no one4 ,in the last months of his life he wrote to a friend to this effect3 8,the falsity of the ,copernican system cannot be doubted1 especially by us ,catholics4 ,it is refuted by the irrefragable authority of ,scripture4 ,the conjectures of ,copernicus and his disciples were all disposed of by the one solid argument3 ,god's omnipotence can operate in infinitely various ways4 ,if something appears to our observation to happen in one particular way1 we must not curtail ,god's arm1 and sustain a thing in which we may be deceived40 ,the irony is evident4 ,rome did not permit the truth about the solar system to be taught till after the middle of the eighteenth century1 and ,galileo's books remained on the ,index till #ahce4 ,the prohibition was fatal to the study of natural science in ,italy4 ,the ,roman ,index reminds us of the significance of the invention of printing in the struggle for freedom of thought1 by making #ia it easy to propagate new ideas far and wide4 ,authority speedily realized the danger1 and took measures to place its yoke on the new contrivance1 which promised to be such a powerful ally of reason4 ,pope ,alexander ,,vi inaugurated censorship of the ,press by his ,bull against unlicensed printing 7#aeja74 ,in ,france ,king ,henry ,,ii made printing without official permission punishable by death4 ,in ,germany1 censorship was introduced in #aebi4 ,in ,england1 under ,elizabeth1 books could not be printed without a license1 and printing presses were not allowed except in ,london1 ,oxford1 and ,cambridge2 the regulation of the ,press was under the authority of the ,star ,chamber4 ,nowhere did the ,press become really free till the nineteenth century4 ,while the ,reformation and the renovated ,roman ,church meant a reaction against the ,renaissance1 the vital changes which the ,renaissance signified--individualism1 a new intellectual attitude to the world1 the cultivation of secular knowledge--were permanent and destined to lead1 amid the competing intolerances of ,catholic and ,protestant powers1 to the goal of liberty4 ,we shall see how reason and the growth of knowledge undermined the bases of theological authority4 ,at each step in this process1 in which philosophical speculation1 historical #ib criticism1 natural science have all taken part1 the opposition between reason and faith deepened2 doubt1 clear or vague1 increased2 and secularism1 derived from the ,humanists1 and always implying scepticism1 whether latent or conscious1 substituted an interest in the fortunes of the human race upon earth for the interest in a future world4 ,and along with this steady intellectual advance1 toleration gained ground and freedom won more champions4 ,in the meantime the force of political circumstances was compelling governments to mitigate their maintenance of one religious creed by measures of relief to other ,christian sects1 and the principle of exclusiveness was broken down for reasons of worldly expediency4 ,religious liberty was an important step towards complete freedom of opinion4 #a ,the danger1 however1 was felt in ,germany1 and in the seventeenth century the study of ,scripture was not encouraged at ,german ,universities4 #b ,see ,barry1 ,papacy and ,modern ,times 7in this series71 #aac seq4 ,,chapter ,v ,,religious ,,toleration ,,in the third century ,b4,c4 the ,indian king ,asoka1 a man of religious zeal but of tolerant spirit1 confronted by the struggle between two hostile religions 7,brahmanism and ,buddhism71 decided that both should be equally privileged and honoured in his dominions4 ,his ordinances on the matter are memorable #ic as the earliest existing ,edicts of toleration4 ,in ,europe1 as we saw1 the principle of toleration was for the first time definitely expressed in the ,roman ,imperial ,edicts which terminated the persecution of the ,christians4 ,the religious strife of the sixteenth century raised the question in its modern form1 and for many generations it was one of the chief problems of statesmen and the subject of endless controversial pamphlets4 ,toleration means incomplete religious liberty1 and there are many degrees of it4 ,it might be granted to certain ,christian sects2 it might be granted to ,christian sects1 but these alone2 it might be granted to all religions1 but not to freethinkers2 or to deists1 but not to atheists4 ,it might mean the concession of some civil rights1 but not of others2 it might mean the exclusion of those who are tolerated from public offices or from certain professions4 ,the religious liberty now enjoyed in ,western lands has been gained through various stages of toleration4 ,we owe the modern principle of toleration to the ,italian group of ,reformers1 who rejected the doctrine of the ,trinity and were the fathers of ,unitarianism4 ,the ,reformation movement had spread to ,italy1 but ,rome was successful in suppressing it1 and many heretics fled to ,switzerland4 ,the anti-,trinitarian #id group were forced by the intolerance of ,calvin to flee to ,transylvania and ,poland where they propagated their doctrines4 ,the ,unitarian creed was moulded by ,fausto ,sozzini1 generally known as ,socinus1 and in the catechism of his sect 7#aegd7 persecution is condemned4 ,this repudiation of the use of force in the interest of religion is a consequence of the ,socinian doctrines4 ,for1 unlike ,luther and ,calvin1 the ,socinians conceded such a wide room to individual judgment in the interpretation of ,scripture that to impose ,socinianism would have been inconsistent with its principles4 ,in other words1 there was a strong rationalistic element which was lacking in the ,trinitarian creeds4 ,it was under the influence of the ,socinian spirit that ,castellion of ,savoy sounded the trumpet of toleration in a pamphlet denouncing the burning of ,servetus1 whereby he earned the malignant hatred of ,calvin4 ,he maintained the innocence of error and ridiculed the importance which the ,churches laid on obscure questions such as predestination and the ,trinity4 8,to discuss the difference between the ,law and the ,gospel1 gratuitous remission of sins or imputed righteousness1 is as if a man were to discuss whether a prince was to come on horseback1 #ie or in a chariot1 or dressed in white or in red40 #a ,religion is a curse if persecution is a necessary part of it4 ,for a long time the ,socinians and those who came under their influence when1 driven from ,poland1 they passed into ,germany and ,holland1 were the only sects which advocated toleration4 ,it was adopted from them by the ,anabaptists and by the ,arminian section of the ,reformed ,church of ,holland4 ,and in ,holland1 the founder of the ,english ,congregationalists1 who 7under the name of ,independents7 played such an important part in the history of the ,civil ,war and the ,commonwealth1 learned the principle of liberty of conscience4 ,socinus thought that this principle could be realized without abolishing the ,state ,church4 ,he contemplated a close union between the ,state and the prevailing ,church1 combined with complete toleration for other sects4 ,it is under this system 7which has been called jurisdictional7 that religious liberty has been realized in ,european ,states4 ,but there is another and simpler method1 that of separating ,church from ,state and placing all religions on an equality4 ,this was the solution which the ,anabaptists would have preferred4 ,they detested the ,state2 and the doctrine of religious liberty was not #if precious to them4 ,their ideal system would have been an ,anabaptist theocracy2 separation was the second best4 ,in ,europe1 public opinion was not ripe for separation1 inasmuch as the most powerful religious bodies were alike in regarding toleration as wicked indifference4 ,but it was introduced in a small corner of the new world beyond the ,atlantic in the seventeenth century4 ,the ,puritans who fled from the intolerance of the ,english ,church and ,state and founded colonies in ,new ,england1 were themselves equally intolerant1 not only to ,anglicans and ,catholics1 but to ,baptists and ,quakers4 ,they set up theocratical governments from which all who did not belong to their own sect were excluded4 ,roger ,williams had imbibed from the ,dutch ,arminians the idea of separation of ,church from ,state4 ,on account of this heresy he was driven from ,massachusetts1 and he founded ,providence to be a refuge for those whom the ,puritan colonists persecuted4 ,here he set up a democratic constitution in which the magistrates had power only in civil matters and could not interfere with religion4 ,other towns were presently founded in ,rhode ,island1 and a charter of ,charles ,,ii 7#affc7 confirmed the constitution1 which secured to all citizens professing ,christianity1 of whatever #ig form1 the full enjoyment of political rights4 ,non-,christians were tolerated1 but were not admitted to the political rights of ,christians4 ,so far1 the new ,state fell short of perfect liberty4 ,but the fact that ,jews were soon admitted1 notwithstanding1 to full citizenship shows how free the atmosphere was4 ,to ,roger ,williams belongs the glory of having founded the first modern ,state which was really tolerant and was based on the principle of taking the control of religious matters entirely out of the hands of the civil government4 ,toleration was also established in the ,roman ,catholic colony of ,maryland1 but in a different way4 ,through the influence of ,lord ,baltimore an ,act of ,toleration was passed in #afdi1 notable as the first decree1 voted by a legal assembly1 granting complete freedom to all ,christians4 ,no one professing faith in ,christ was to be molested in regard to his religion4 ,but the law was heavy on all outside this pale4 ,any one who blasphemed ,god or attacked the ,trinity or any member of the ,trinity was threatened by the penalty of death4 ,the tolerance of ,maryland attracted so many ,protestant settlers from ,virginia that the ,protestants became a majority1 and as soon as they won political preponderance1 they introduced an ,act 7#afed7 #ih excluding ,papists and ,prelatists from toleration4 ,the rule of the ,baltimores was restored after #affj1 and the old religious freedom was revived1 but with the accession of ,william ,,iii the ,protestants again came into power and the toleration which the ,catholics had instituted in ,maryland came to an end4 ,it will be observed that in both these cases freedom was incomplete2 but it was much larger and more fundamental in ,rhode ,island1 where it had been ultimately derived from the doctrine of ,socinus4 #b ,when the colonies became independent of ,england the ,federal ,constitution which they set up was absolutely secular1 but it was left to each member of the ,union to adopt ,separation or not 7#aghi74 ,if separation has become the rule in the ,american ,states1 it may be largely due to the fact that on any other system the governments would have found it difficult to impose mutual tolerance on the sects4 ,it must be added that in ,maryland and a few southern ,states atheists still suffer from some political disabilities4 ,in ,england1 the experiment of ,separation would have been tried under the ,commonwealth1 if the ,independents had had their way4 ,this policy was overruled by ,cromwell4 #ii ,the new national ,church included ,presbyterians1 ,independents1 and ,baptists1 but liberty of worship was granted to all ,christian sects1 except ,roman ,catholics and ,anglicans4 ,if the parliament had had the power1 this toleration would have been a mere name4 ,the ,presbyterians regarded toleration as a work of the ,devil1 and would have persecuted the ,independents if they could4 ,but under ,cromwell's autocratic rule even the ,anglicans lived in peace1 and toleration was extended to the ,jews4 ,in these days1 voices were raised from various quarters advocating toleration on general grounds4 #c ,the most illustrious advocate was ,milton1 the poet1 who was in favour of the severance of ,church from ,state4 ,in ,milton's ,areopagitica3 a speech for the liberty of unlicensed printing 7#afdd71 the freedom of the ,press is eloquently sustained by arguments which are valid for freedom of thought in general4 ,it is shown that the censorship will conduce 8to the discouragement of all learning and the stop of truth1 not only by disexercising and blunting our abilities in what we know already1 but by hindering and cropping the discovery that might be yet further made1 both in religious #ajj and civil wisdom40 ,for knowledge is advanced through the utterance of new opinions1 and truth is discovered by free discussion4 ,if the waters of truth 8flow not in a perpetual progression they sicken into a muddy pool of conformity and tradition40 ,books which are authorized by the licensers are apt to be1 as ,bacon said1 8but the language of the times10 and do not contribute to progress4 ,the examples of the countries where the censorship is severe do not suggest that it is useful for morals3 8look into ,italy and ,spain1 whether those places be one scruple the better1 the honester1 the wiser1 the chaster1 since all the inquisitional rigour that hath been executed upon books40 ,spain indeed could reply1 8,we are1 what is more important1 more orthodox40 ,it is interesting to notice that ,milton places freedom of thought above civil liberty3 8,give me the liberty to know1 to utter1 and to argue freely according to conscience1 above all other liberties40 ,with the restoration of the ,monarchy and the ,anglican ,church1 religious liberty was extinguished by a series of laws against ,dissenters4 ,to the ,revolution we owe the ,act of ,toleration 7#afhi7 from which the religious freedom which ,england enjoys at present is derived4 ,it granted freedom of worship to ,presbyterians1 ,congregationalists1 #aja ,baptists and ,quakers1 but only to these2 ,catholics and ,unitarians were expressly excepted and the repressive legislation of ,charles ,,ii remained in force against them4 ,it was a characteristically ,english measure1 logically inconsistent and absurd1 a mixture of tolerance and intolerance1 but suitable to the circumstances and the state of public opinion at the time4 ,in the same year ,john ,locke's famous 7first7 ,letter concerning ,toleration appeared in ,latin4 ,three subsequent letters developed and illustrated his thesis4 ,the main argument is based on the principle that the business of civil government is quite distinct from that of religion1 that the ,state is a society constituted only for preserving and promoting the civil interests of its members --civil interests meaning life1 liberty1 health1 and the possession of property4 ,the care of souls is not committed to magistrates more than to other men4 ,for the magistrate can only use outward force2 but true religion means the inward persuasion of the mind1 and the mind is so made that force cannot compel it to believe4 ,so too it is absurd for a ,state to make laws to enforce a religion1 for laws are useless without penalties1 and penalties are impertinent because they cannot convince4 ,moreover1 even if penalties could change #ajb men's beliefs1 this would not conduce to the salvation of souls4 ,would more men be saved if all blindly resigned themselves to the will of their rulers and accepted the religion of their country8 ,for as the princes of the world are divided in religion1 one country alone would be in the right1 and all the rest of the world would have to follow their princes to destruction2 8and that which heightens the absurdity1 and very ill suits the notion of a deity1 men would owe their eternal happiness or their eternal misery to the places of their nativity40 ,this is a principle on which ,locke repeatedly insists4 ,if a ,state is justified in imposing a creed1 it follows that in all the lands1 except the one or few in which the true faith prevails1 it is the duty of the subjects to embrace a false religion4 ,if ,protestantism is promoted in ,england1 ,popery by the same rule will be promoted in ,france4 8,what is true and good in ,england will be true and good at ,rome too1 in ,china1 or ,geneva40 ,toleration is the principle which gives to the true faith the best chance of prevailing4 ,locke would concede full liberty to idolaters1 by whom he means the ,indians of ,north ,america1 and he makes some scathing remarks on the ecclesiastical zeal which forced these 8innocent pagans0 to forsake #ajc their ancient religion4 ,but his toleration1 though it extends beyond the ,christian pale1 is not complete4 ,he excepts in the first place ,roman ,catholics1 not on account of their theological dogmas but because they 8teach that faith is not to be kept with heretics10 that 8kings excommunicated forfeit their crowns and kingdoms10 and because they deliver themselves up to the protection and service of a foreign prince--the ,pope4 ,in other words1 they are politically dangerous4 ,his other exception is atheists4 8,those are not all to be tolerated who deny the being of ,god4 ,promises1 covenants and oaths1 which are the bonds of human society1 can have no hold upon an atheist4 ,the taking away of ,god1 though but even in thought1 dissolves all4 ,besides also1 those that by their atheism undermine and destroy all religion1 can have no pretence of religion to challenge the privilege of a ,toleration40 ,thus ,locke is not free from the prejudices of his time4 ,these exceptions contradict his own principle that 8it is absurd that things should be enjoined by laws which are not in men's power to perform4 ,and to believe this or that to be true does not depend upon our will40 ,this applies to ,roman ,catholics as to ,protestants1 to atheists as to deists4 ,locke1 however1 perhaps thought #ajd that the speculative opinion of atheism1 which was uncommon in his day1 does depend on the will4 ,he would have excluded from his ,state his great contemporary ,spinoza4 ,but in spite of its limitations ,locke's ,toleration is a work of the highest value1 and its argument takes us further than its author went4 ,it asserts unrestrictedly the secular principle1 and its logical issue is ,disestablishment4 ,a ,church is merely 8a free and voluntary society40 ,i may notice the remark that if infidels were to be converted by force1 it was easier for ,god to do it 8with armies of heavenly legions than for any son of the ,church1 how potent soever1 with all his dragoons40 ,this is a polite way of stating a maxim analogous to that of the ,emperor ,tiberius 7above1 p4 #da74 ,if false beliefs are an offence to ,god1 it is1 really1 his affair4 ,the toleration of ,nonconformists was far from pleasing extreme ,anglicans1 and the influence of this party at the beginning of the eighteenth century menaced the liberty of ,dissenters4 ,the situation provoked ,defoe1 who was a zealous ,nonconformist1 to write his pamphlet1 ,the ,shortest ,way with the ,dissenters 7#agjb71 an ironical attack upon the principle of toleration4 ,it pretends to show that the ,dissenters are at heart incorrigible rebels1 that a gentle policy is useless1 and suggests #aje that all preachers at conventicles should be hanged and all persons found attending such meetings should be banished4 ,this exceedingly amusing but terribly earnest caricature of the sentiments of the ,high ,anglican party at first deceived and alarmed the ,dissenters themselves4 ,but the ,high ,churchmen were furious4 ,defoe was fined1 exposed in the pillory three times1 and sent to ,newgate prison4 ,but the ,tory reaction was only temporary4 ,during the eighteenth century a relatively tolerant spirit prevailed among the ,christian sects and new sects were founded4 ,the official ,church became less fanatical2 many of its leading divines were influenced by rationalistic thought4 ,if it had not been for the opposition of ,king ,george ,,iii1 the ,catholics might have been freed from their disabilities before the end of the century4 ,this measure1 eloquently advocated by ,burke and desired by ,pitt1 was not carried till #ahbi1 and then under the threat of a revolution in ,ireland4 ,in the meantime legal toleration had been extended to the ,unitarians in #ahac1 but they were not relieved from all disabilities till the forties4 ,jews were not admitted to the full rights of citizenship till #aheh4 ,the achievement of religious liberty in ,england in the nineteenth century has been mainly the work of ,liberals4 ,the ,liberal #ajf party has been moving towards the ultimate goal of complete secularization and the separation of the ,church from the ,state-- the logical results of ,locke's theory of civil government4 ,the ,disestablishment of the ,church in ,ireland in #ahfi partly realized this ideal1 and now more than forty years later the ,liberal party is seeking to apply the principle to ,wales4 ,it is highly characteristic of ,english politics and ,english psychology that the change should be carried out in this piecemeal fashion4 ,in the other countries of the ,british ,empire the system of ,separation prevails2 there is no connection between the ,state and any sect2 no ,church is anything more than a voluntary society4 ,but secularization has advanced under the ,state ,church system4 ,it is enough to mention the ,education ,act of #ahgj and the abolition of religious tests at ,universities 7#ahga74 ,other gains for freedom will be noticed when ,i come to speak in another chapter of the progress of rationalism4 ,if we compare the religious situation in ,france in the seventeenth with that in the eighteenth century1 it seems to be sharply contrasted with the development in ,england4 ,in ,england there was a great advance towards religious liberty1 in ,france there was a falling away4 ,until #afgf the ,french ,protestants #ajg 7,huguenots7 were tolerated2 for the next hundred years they were outlaws4 ,but the toleration1 which their charter 7the ,edict of ,nantes1 #aeih7 secured them1 was of a limited kind4 ,they were excluded1 for instance1 from the army2 they were excluded from ,paris and other cities and districts4 ,and the liberty which they enjoyed was confined to them2 it was not granted to any other sect4 ,the charter was faithfully maintained by the two great ,cardinals 7,richelieu and ,mazarin7 who governed ,france under ,louis ,,xiii and ,louis ,,xiv1 but when the latter assumed the active power in #affa he began a series of laws against the ,protestants which culminated in the revoking of the charter 7#afgf7 and the beginning of a ,protestant persecution4 ,the ,french clergy justified this policy by the notorious text 8,compel them to come in10 and appealed to ,st4 ,augustine4 ,their arguments evoked a defence of toleration by ,bayle1 a ,french ,protestant who had taken refuge in ,holland4 ,it was entitled a ,philosophical ,commentary on the text 8,compel them to come in0 7#afhf7 and in importance stands beside ,locke's work which was being composed at the same time4 ,many of the arguments urged by the two writers are identical4 ,they agreed1 and for the same reasons1 in excluding ,roman ,catholics4 ,the #ajh most characteristic thing in ,bayle's treatise is his sceptical argument that1 even if it were a right principle to suppress error by force1 no truth is certain enough to justify us in applying the theory4 ,we shall see 7next chapter7 this eminent scholar's contribution to rationalism4 ,though there was an immense exodus of ,protestants from ,france1 ,louis did not succeed in his design of extirpating heresy from his lands4 ,in the eighteenth century1 under ,louis ,,xv1 the presence of ,protestants was tolerated though they were outlaws2 their marriages were not recognized as legal1 and they were liable at any moment to persecution4 ,about the middle of the century a literary agitation began1 conducted mainly by rationalists1 but finally supported by enlightened ,catholics1 to relieve the affliction of the oppressed sect4 ,it resulted at last in an ,edict of ,toleration 7#aghg71 which made the position of the ,protestants endurable1 though it excluded them from certain careers4 ,the most energetic and forceful leader in the campaign against intolerance was ,voltaire 7see next chapter71 and his exposure of some glaring cases of unjust persecution did more than general arguments to achieve the object4 ,the most infamous case was that of ,jean ,calas1 a ,protestant merchant of ,toulouse1 whose son committed suicide4 ,a report #aji was set abroad that the young man had decided to join the ,catholic ,church1 and that his father1 mother1 and brother1 filled with ,protestant bigotry1 killed him1 with the help of a friend4 ,they were all put in irons1 tried1 and condemned1 though there were no arguments for their guilt1 except the conjecture of bigotry4 ,jean ,calas was broken on the wheel1 his son and daughter cast into convents1 his wife left to starve4 ,through the activity of ,voltaire1 then living near ,geneva1 the widow was induced to go to ,paris1 where she was kindly received1 and assisted by eminent lawyers2 a judicial inquiry was made2 the ,toulouse sentence was reversed and the ,king granted pensions to those who had suffered4 ,this scandal could only have happened in the provinces1 according to ,voltaire3 8at ,paris10 he says1 8fanaticism1 powerful though it may be1 is always controlled by reason40 ,the case of ,sirven1 though it did not end tragically1 was similar1 and the government of ,toulouse was again responsible4 ,he was accused of having drowned his daughter in a well to hinder her from becoming a ,catholic1 and was1 with his wife1 sentenced to death4 ,fortunately he and his family had escaped to ,switzerland1 where they persuaded ,voltaire of their innocence4 ,to get the sentence reversed was the work of nine years1 and this #aaj time it was reversed at ,toulouse4 ,when ,voltaire visited ,paris in #aggh he was acclaimed by crowds as the 8defender of ,calas and the ,sirvens40 ,his disinterested practical activity against persecution was of far more value than the treatise on ,toleration which he wrote in connexion with the ,calas episode4 ,it is a poor work compared with those of ,locke and ,bayle4 ,the tolerance which he advocates is of a limited kind2 he would confine public offices and dignities to those who belong to the ,state religion4 ,but if ,voltaire's system of toleration is limited1 it is wide compared with the religious establishment advocated by his contemporary1 ,rousseau4 ,though of ,swiss birth1 ,rousseau belongs to the literature and history of ,france2 but it was not for nothing that he was brought up in the traditions of ,calvinistic ,geneva4 ,his ideal ,state would1 in its way1 have been little better than any theocracy4 ,he proposed to establish a 8civil religion0 which was to be a sort of undogmatic ,christianity4 ,but certain dogmas1 which he considered essential1 were to be imposed on all citizens on pain of banishment4 ,such were the existence of a deity1 the future bliss of the good and punishment of the bad1 the duty of tolerance towards all those who accepted the fundamental #aaa articles of faith4 ,it may be said that a ,state founded on this basis would be fairly inclusive--that all ,christian sects and many deists could find a place in it4 ,but by imposing indispensable beliefs1 it denies the principle of toleration4 ,the importance of ,rousseau's idea lies in the fact that it inspired one of the experiments in religious policy which were made during the ,french ,revolution4 ,the ,revolution established religious liberty in ,france4 ,most of the leaders were unorthodox4 ,their rationalism was naturally of the eighteenth-century type1 and in the preamble to the ,declaration of ,rights 7#aghi7 deism was asserted by the words 8in the presence and under the auspices of the ,supreme ,being0 7against which only one voice protested74 ,the ,declaration laid down that no one was to be vexed on account of his religious opinions provided he did not thereby trouble public order4 ,catholicism was retained as the 8dominant0 religion2 ,protestants 7but not ,jews7 were admitted to public office4 ,mirabeau1 the greatest statesman of the day1 protested strongly against the use of words like 8tolerance0 and 8dominant40 ,he said3 8,the most unlimited liberty of religion is in my eyes a right so sacred that to express it by the word #8toleration' seems to me itself a sort of tyranny1 #aab since the authority which tolerates might also not tolerate40 ,the same protest was made in ,thomas ,paine's ,rights of ,man which appeared two years later3 8,toleration is not the opposite of ,intolerance1 but is the counterfeit of it4 ,both are despotisms4 ,the one assumes itself the right of withholding liberty of conscience1 and the other of granting it40 ,paine was an ardent deist1 and he added3 8,were a bill brought into any parliament1 entitled #8,an ,act to tolerate or grant liberty to the ,almighty to receive the worship of a ,jew or a ,turk1' or #8to prohibit the ,almighty from receiving it1' all men would startle and call it blasphemy4 ,there would be an uproar4 ,the presumption of toleration in religious matters would then present itself unmasked40 ,the ,revolution began well1 but the spirit of ,mirabeau was not in the ascendant throughout its course4 ,the vicissitudes in religious policy from #aghi to #ahja have a particular interest1 because they show that the principle of liberty of conscience was far from possessing the minds of the men who were proud of abolishing the intolerance of the government which they had overthrown4 ,the ,state ,church was reorganized by the ,civil ,constitution of the ,clergy 7#agij71 by which ,french citizens were forbidden to acknowledge the authority of the ,pope and #aac the appointment of ,bishops was transferred to the ,electors of the ,departments1 so that the commanding influence passed from the ,crown to the nation4 ,doctrine and worship were not touched4 ,under the democratic ,republic which succeeded the fall of the monarchy 7#agib-e7 this ,constitution was maintained1 but a movement to dechristianize ,france was inaugurated1 and the ,commune of ,paris ordered the churches of all religions to be closed4 ,the worship of ,reason1 with rites modelled on the ,catholic1 was organized in ,paris and the provinces4 ,the government1 violently anti-,catholic1 did not care to use force against the prevalent faith2 direct persecution would have weakened the national defence and scandalized ,europe4 ,they navely hoped that the superstition would disappear by degrees4 ,robespierre declared against the policy of unchristianizing ,france1 and when he had the power 7,april1 #agie71 he established as a ,state religion the worship of the ,supreme ,being4 8,the ,french people recognizes the existence of the ,supreme ,being and the immortality of the ,soul02 the liberty of other cults was maintained4 ,thus1 for a few months1 ,rousseau's idea was more or less realized4 ,it meant intolerance4 ,atheism was regarded as a vice1 and 8all were atheists who did not think like ,robespierre40 #aad ,the democratic was succeeded by the middle-class ,republic 7#agie-i71 and the policy of its government was to hinder the preponderance of any one religious group2 to hold the balance among all the creeds1 but with a certain partiality against the strongest1 the ,catholic1 which threatened1 as was thought1 to destroy the others or even the ,republic4 ,the plan was to favour the growth of new rationalistic cults1 and to undermine revealed religion by a secular system of education4 ,accordingly the ,church was separated from the ,state by the ,constitution of #agie1 which affirmed the liberty of all worship and withdrew from the ,catholic clergy the salaries which the ,state had hitherto paid4 ,the elementary schools were laicized4 ,the ,declaration of ,rights1 the articles of the ,constitution1 and republican morality were taught instead of religion4 ,an enthusiast declared that 8the religion of ,socrates1 ,marcus ,aurelius1 and ,cicero would soon be the religion of the world40 ,a new rationalistic religion was introduced under the name of ,theophilanthropy4 ,it was the 8natural religion0 of the philosophers and poets of the century1 of ,voltaire and the ,english deists--not the purified ,christianity of ,rousseau1 but anterior and superior to ,christianity4 ,its doctrines1 briefly formulated1 #aae were3 ,god1 immortality1 fraternity1 humanity2 no attacks on other religions1 but respect and honour towards all2 gatherings in a family1 or in a temple1 to encourage one another to practise morality4 ,protected by the government sometimes secretly1 sometimes openly1 it had a certain success among the cultivated classes4 ,the idea of the lay ,state was popularized under this rule1 and by the end of the century there was virtually religious peace in ,france4 ,under the ,consulate 7from #agii7 the same system continued1 but ,napoleon ceased to protect ,theophilanthropy4 ,in #ahja1 though there seems to have been little discontent with the existing arrangement1 ,napoleon decided to upset it and bring the ,pope upon the scene4 ,the ,catholic religion1 as that of the majority1 was again taken under the special protection of the ,state1 the salaries of the clergy again paid by the nation1 and the ,papal authority over the ,church again recognized within well-defined limits2 while full toleration of other religions was maintained4 ,this was the effect of the ,concordat between the ,french ,republic and the ,pope4 ,it is the judgment of a high authority that the nation1 if it had been consulted1 would have pronounced against the change4 ,it may be doubted whether this is true4 ,but ,napoleon's policy #aaf seems to have been prompted by the calculation that1 using the ,pope as an instrument1 he could control the consciences of men1 and more easily carry out his plans of empire4 ,apart from its ecclesiastical policies and its experiments in new creeds based on the principles of rationalistic thinkers1 the ,french ,revolution itself has an interest1 in connexion with our subject1 as an example of the coercion of reason by an intolerant faith4 ,the leaders believed that1 by applying certain principles1 they could regenerate ,france and show the world how the lasting happiness of mankind can be secured4 ,they acted in the name of reason1 but their principles were articles of faith1 which were accepted just as blindly and irrationally as the dogmas of any supernatural creed4 ,one of these dogmas was the false doctrine of ,rousseau that man is a being who is naturally good and loves justice and order4 ,another was the illusion that all men are equal by nature4 ,the puerile conviction prevailed that legislation could completely blot out the past and radically transform the character of a society4 8,liberty1 equality1 and fraternity0 was as much a creed as the ,creed of the ,apostles2 it hypnotized men's minds like a revelation from on high2 and reason had as little part in its propagation as in the spread #aag of ,christianity or of ,protestantism4 ,it meant anything but equality1 fraternity1 or liberty1 especially liberty1 when it was translated into action by the fanatical apostles of 8,reason10 who were blind to the facts of human nature and defied the facts of econnomics4 ,terror1 the usual instrument in propagating religions1 was never more mercilessly applied4 ,any one who questioned the doctrines was a heretic and deserved a heretic's fate4 ,and1 as in most religious movements1 the milder and less unreasonable spirits succumbed to the fanatics4 ,never was the name of reason more grievously abused than by those who believed they were inaugurating her reign4 ,religious liberty1 however1 among other good things1 did emerge from the ,revolution1 at first in the form of ,separation1 and then under the ,concordat4 ,the ,concordat lasted for more than a century1 under monarchies and republics1 till it was abolished in ,december1 #aije1 when the system of ,separation was introduced again4 ,in the ,german ,states the history of religious liberty differs in many ways1 but it resembles the development in ,france in so far as toleration in a limited form was at first brought about by war4 ,the ,thirty ,years' ,war1 which divided ,germany in the first half #aah of the seventeenth century1 and in which1 as in the ,english ,civil ,war1 religion and politics were mixed1 was terminated by the ,peace of ,westphalia 7#afdh74 ,by this act1 three religions1 the ,catholic1 the ,lutheran1 and the ,reformed #d were legally recognized by the ,holy ,roman ,empire1 and placed on an equality2 all other religious were excluded4 ,but it was left to each of the ,german ,states1 of which the ,empire consisted1 to tolerate or not any religion it pleased4 ,that is1 every prince could impose on his subjects whichever of the three religions he chose1 and refuse to tolerate the others in his territory4 ,but he might also admit one or both of the others1 and he might allow the followers of other creeds to reside in his dominion1 and practise their religion within the precincts of their own houses4 ,thus toleration varied1 from ,state to ,state1 according to the policy of each particular prince4 ,as elsewhere1 so in ,germany1 considerations of political expediency promoted the growth of toleration1 especially in ,prussia2 and as elsewhere1 theoretical advocates exercised great influence on public opinion4 ,but the case for toleration was based by its ,german defenders chiefly on legal1 not1 as in #aai ,england and ,france1 on moral and intellectual grounds4 ,they regarded it as a question of law1 and discussed it from the point of view of the legal relations between ,state and ,church4 ,it had been considered long ago from this standpoint by an original ,italian thinker1 ,marsilius of ,padua 7thirteenth century71 who had maintained that the ,church had no power to employ physical coercion1 and that if the lay authority punished heretics1 the punishment was inflicted for the violation not of divine ordinances but of the law of the ,state1 which excluded heretics from its territory4 ,christian ,thomasius may be taken as a leading exponent of the theory that religious liberty logically follows from a right conception of law4 ,he laid down in a series of pamphlets 7#afic-afig7 that the prince1 who alone has the power of coercion1 has no right to interfere in spiritual matters1 while the clergy step beyond their province if they interfere in secular matters or defend their faith by any other means than teaching4 ,but the secular power has no legal right to coerce heretics unless heresy is a crime4 ,and heresy is not a crime1 but an error2 for it is not a matter of will4 ,thomasius1 moreover1 urges the view that the public welfare has nothing to gain from unity of faith1 that it makes no #abj difference what faith a man professes so long as he is loyal to the ,state4 ,his toleration indeed is not complete4 ,he was much influenced by the writings of his contemporary ,locke1 and he excepts from the benefit of toleration the same classes which ,locke excepted4 ,besides the influence of the jurists1 we may note that the ,pietistic movement--a reaction of religious enthusiasm against the formal theology of the ,lutheran divines--was animated by a spirit favourable to toleration2 and that the cause was promoted by the leading men of letters1 especially by ,lessing1 in the second half of the eighteenth century4 ,but perhaps the most important fact of all in hastening the realization of religious liberty in ,germany was the accession of a rationalist to the throne of ,prussia1 in the person of ,frederick the ,great4 ,a few months after his accession 7#agdj7 he wrote in the margin of a ,state paper1 in which a question of religious policy occurred1 that every one should be allowed to get to heaven in his own way4 ,his view that morality was independent of religion and therefore compatible with all religions1 and that thus a man could be a good citizen--the only thing which the ,state was entitled to demand--whatever faith he might profess1 led to the logical consequence of complete religious liberty4 ,catholics #aba were placed on an equality with ,protestants1 and the ,treaty of ,westphalia was violated by the extension of full toleration to all the forbidden sects4 ,frederick even conceived the idea of introducing ,mohammedan settlers into some parts of his realm4 ,contrast ,england under ,george ,,iii1 ,france under ,louis ,,xv1 ,italy under the shadow of the ,popes4 ,it is an important fact in history1 which has hardly been duly emphasized1 that full religious liberty was for the first time1 in any country in modern ,europe1 realized under a free-thinking ruler1 the friend of the great 8blasphemer0 ,voltaire4 ,the policy and principles of ,frederick were formulated in the ,prussian ,territorial ,code of #agid1 by which unrestricted liberty of conscience was guaranteed1 and the three chief religions1 the ,lutheran1 the ,reformed1 and the ,catholic1 were placed on the same footing and enjoyed the same privileges4 ,the system is 8jurisdictional02 only1 three ,churches here occupy the position which the ,anglican ,church alone occupies in ,england4 ,the rest of ,germany did not begin to move in the direction pointed out by ,prussia until1 by one of the last acts of the ,holy ,roman ,empire 7#ahjc71 the ,westphalian settlement had been modified4 ,before the foundation of the new ,empire 7#ahgj71 freedom was established throughout ,germany4 #abb ,in ,austria1 the ,emperor ,joseph ,,ii issued an ,edict of ,toleration in #agha1 which may be considered a broad measure for a ,catholic ,state at that time4 ,joseph was a sincere ,catholic1 but he was not impervious to the enlightened ideas of his age2 he was an admirer of ,frederick1 and his edict was prompted by a genuinely tolerant spirit1 such as had not inspired the ,english ,act of #afhi4 ,it extended only to the ,lutheran and ,reformed sects and the communities of the ,greek ,church which had entered into union with ,rome1 and it was of a limited kind4 ,religious liberty was not established till #ahfg4 ,the measure of ,joseph applied to the ,austrian ,states in ,italy1 and helped to prepare that country for the idea of religious freedom4 ,it is notable that in ,italy in the eighteenth century toleration found its advocate1 not in a rationalist or a philosopher1 but in a ,catholic ecclesiastic1 ,tamburinni1 who 7under the name of his friend ,trautmansdorf7 published a work ,on ,ecclesiastical and ,civil ,toleration 7#aghc74 ,a sharp line is drawn between the provinces of the ,church and the ,state1 persecution and the ,inquisition are condemned1 coercion of conscience is declared inconsistent with the ,christian spirit1 and the principle is laid down that the sovran should only exercise coercion where #abc the interests of public safety are concerned4 ,like ,locke1 the author thinks that atheism is a legitimate case for such coercion4 ,the new ,states which ,napoleon set up in ,italy exhibited toleration in various degrees1 but real liberty was first introduced in ,piedmont by ,cavour 7#ahdh71 a measure which prepared the way for the full liberty which was one of the first-fruits of the foundation of the ,italian kingdom in #ahgj4 ,the union of ,italy1 with all that it meant1 is the most signal and dramatic act in the triumph of the ideas of the modern ,state over the traditional principles of the ,christian ,church4 ,rome1 which preserved those principles most faithfully1 has offered a steadfast1 we may say a heroic1 resistance to the liberal ideas which swept ,europe in the nineteenth century4 ,the guides of her policy grasped thoroughly the danger which liberal thought meant for an institution which1 founded in a remote past1 claimed to be unchangeable and never out of date4 ,gregory ,,xvi issued a solemn protest maintaining authority against freedom1 the mediaeval against the modern ideal1 in an ,encyclical ,letter 7#ahcb71 which was intended as a rebuke to some young ,french ,catholics 7,lamennais and his friends7 who had conceived the promising idea of transforming the ,church by the ,liberal spirit #abd of the day4 ,the ,pope denounces 8the absurd and erroneous maxim1 or rather insanity1 that liberty of conscience should be procured and guaranteed to every one4 ,the path to this pernicious error is prepared by that full and unlimited liberty of thought which is spread abroad to the misfortune of ,church and ,state and which certain persons1 with excessive impudence1 venture to represent as an advantage for religion4 ,hence comes the corruption of youth1 contempt for religion and for the most venerable laws1 and a general mental change in the world--in short the most deadly scourge of society2 since the experience of history has shown that the ,states which have shone by their wealth and power and glory have perished just by this evil-- immoderate freedom of opinion1 licence of conversation1 and love of novelties4 ,with this is connected the liberty of publishing any writing of any kind4 ,this is a deadly and execrable liberty for which we cannot feel sufficient horror1 though some men dare to acclaim it noisily and enthusiastically40 ,a generation later ,pius ,,ix was to astonish the world by a similar manifesto--his ,syllabus of ,modern ,errors 7#ahfd74 ,yet1 notwithstanding the fundamental antagonism between the principles of the ,church and the drift of modern civilization1 the ,papacy survives1 #abe powerful and respected1 in a world where the ideas which it condemned have become the commonplace conditions of life4 ,the progress of ,western nations from the system of unity which prevailed in the fifteenth1 to the system of liberty which was the rule in the nineteenth century1 was slow and painful1 illogical and wavering1 generally dictated by political necessities1 seldom inspired by deliberate conviction4 ,we have seen how religious liberty has been realized1 so far as the law is concerned1 under two distinct systems1 8,jurisdiction0 and 8,separation40 ,but legal toleration may coexist with much practical intolerance1 and liberty before the law is compatible with serious disabilities of which the law cannot take account4 ,for instance1 the expression of unorthodox opinions may exclude a man from obtaining a secular post or hinder his advancement4 ,the question has been asked1 which of the two systems is more favourable to the creation of a tolerant social atmosphere8 ,ruffini 7of whose excellent work on ,religious ,liberty ,i have made much use in this chapter7 decides in favour of ,jurisdiction4 ,he points out that while ,socinus1 a true friend of liberty of thought1 contemplated this system1 the ,anabaptists1 whose spirit was intolerant1 sought ,separation4 ,more important #abf is the observation that in ,germany1 ,england1 and ,italy1 where the most powerful ,church or ,churches are under the control of the ,state1 there is more freedom1 more tolerance of opinion1 than in many of the ,american ,states where ,separation prevails4 ,a hundred years ago the ,americans showed appalling ingratitude to ,thomas ,paine1 who had done them eminent service in the ,war of ,independence1 simply because he published a very unorthodox book4 ,it is notorious that free thought is still a serious hindrance and handicap to an ,american1 even in most of the ,universities4 ,this proves that ,separation is not an infallible receipt for producing tolerance4 ,but ,i see no reason to suppose that public opinion in ,america would be different1 if either the ,federal ,republic or the particular ,states had adopted ,jurisdiction4 ,given legal liberty under either system1 ,i should say that the tolerance of public opinion depends on social conditions and especially on the degree of culture among the educated classes4 ,from this sketch it will be seen that toleration was the outcome of new political circumstances and necessities1 brought about by the disunion of the ,church through the ,reformation4 ,but it meant that in those ,states which granted toleration the opinion of #abg a sufficiently influential group of the governing class was ripe for the change1 and this new mental attitude was in a great measure due to the scepticism and rationalism which were diffused by the ,renaissance movement1 and which subtly and unconsciously had affected the minds of many who were sincerely devoted to rigidly orthodox beliefs2 so effective is the force of suggestion4 ,in the next two chapters the advance of reason at the expense of faith will be traced through the seventeenth1 eighteenth1 and nineteenth centuries4 #a ,translated by ,lecky4 #b ,complete toleration was established by ,penn in the ,quaker ,colony of ,pennsylvania in #afhb4 #c ,especially ,chillingworth's ,religion of ,protestants 7#afcg71 and ,jeremy ,taylor's ,liberty of ,prophesying 7#afdf74 #d ,the ,reformed ,church consists of the followers of ,calvin and ,zwingli4 ,,chapter ,,vi ,,the ,,growth ,,of ,,rationalism 7,,seventeenth ,,and ,,eighteenth ,,centuries7 ,,during the last three hundred years reason has been slowly but steadily destroying ,christian mythology and exposing the pretensions of supernatural revelation4 ,the progress of rationalism falls naturally into two periods4 7#a7 ,in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries those thinkers who rejected ,christian theology and the book on which it relies were mainly influenced by the inconsistencies1 contradictions1 and absurdities which they discovered in the evidence1 and by the moral #abh difficulties of the creed4 ,some scientific facts were known which seemed to reflect on the accuracy of ,revelation1 but arguments based on science were subsidiary4 7#b7 ,in the nineteenth century the discoveries of science in many fields bore with full force upon fabrics which had been constructed in a nave and ignorant age2 and historical criticism undermined methodically the authority of the sacred documents which had hitherto been exposed chiefly to the acute but unmethodical criticisms of common sense4 ,a disinterested love of facts1 without any regard to the bearing which those facts may have on one's hopes or fears or destiny1 is a rare quality in all ages1 and it had been very rare indeed since the ancient days of ,greece and ,rome4 ,it means the scientific spirit4 ,now in the seventeenth century we may say 7without disrespect to a few precursors7 that the modern study of natural science began1 and in the same period we have a series of famous thinkers who were guided by a disinterested love of truth4 ,of the most acute minds some reached the conclusion that the ,christian scheme of the world is irrational1 and according to their temperament some rejected it1 whilst others1 like the great ,frenchman ,pascal1 fell back upon an unreasoning act of faith4 ,bacon1 who professed #abi orthodoxy1 was perhaps at heart a deist1 but in any case the whole spirit of his writings was to exclude authority from the domain of scientific investigation which he did so much to stimulate4 ,descartes1 illustrious not only as the founder of modern metaphysics but also by his original contributions to science1 might seek to conciliate the ecclesiastical authorities--his temper was timid-- but his philosophical method was a powerful incentive to rationalistic thought4 ,the general tendency of superior intellects was to exalt reason at the expense of authority2 and in ,england this principle was established so firmly by ,locke1 that throughout the theological warfare of the eighteenth century both parties relied on reason1 and no theologian of repute assumed faith to be a higher faculty4 ,a striking illustration of the gradual encroachments of reason is the change which was silently wrought in public opinion on the subject of witchcraft4 ,the famous efforts of ,james ,i to carry out the ,biblical command1 8,thou shalt not suffer a witch to live10 were outdone by the zeal of the ,puritans under the ,commonwealth to suppress the wicked old women who had commerce with ,satan4 ,after the ,restoration1 the belief in witchcraft declined among educated people--though #acj some able writers maintained it--and there were few executions4 ,the last trial of a witch was in #agab1 when some clergymen in ,hertfordshire prosecuted ,jane ,wenham4 ,the jury found her guilty1 but the judge1 who had summed up in her favour1 was able to procure the remission of her sentence2 and the laws against witchcraft were repealed in #agce4 ,john ,wesley said with perfect truth that to disbelieve in witchcraft is to disbelieve in the ,bible4 ,in ,france and in ,holland the decline of belief and interest in this particular form of ,satan's activity was simultaneous4 ,in ,scotland1 where theology was very powerful1 a woman was burnt in #agbb4 ,it can be no mere coincidence that the general decline of this superstition belongs to the age which saw the rise of modern science and modern philosophy4 ,hobbes1 who was perhaps the most brilliant ,english thinker of the seventeenth century1 was a freethinker and materialist4 ,he had come under the influence of his friend the ,french philosopher ,gassendi1 who had revived materialism in its ,epicurean shape4 ,yet he was a champion not of freedom of conscience but of coercion in its most uncompromising form4 ,in the political theory which he expounded in ,leviathan1 the sovran has autocratic power in the domain of doctrine1 #aca as in everything else1 and it is the duty of subjects to conform to the religion which the sovran imposes4 ,religious persecution is thus defended1 but no independent power is left to the ,church4 ,but the principles on which ,hobbes built up his theory were rationalistic4 ,he separated morality from religion and identified 8the true moral philosophy0 with the 8true doctrine of the laws of nature40 ,what he really thought of religion could be inferred from his remark that the fanciful fear of things invisible 7due to ignorance7 is the natural seed of that feeling which1 in himself1 a man calls religion1 but1 in those who fear or worship the invisible power differently1 superstition4 ,in the reign of ,charles ,,ii ,hobbes was silenced and his books were burned4 ,spinoza1 the ,jewish philosopher of ,holland1 owed a great deal to ,descartes and 7in political speculation7 to ,hobbes1 but his philosophy meant a far wider and more open breach with orthodox opinion than either of his masters had ventured on4 ,he conceived ultimate reality1 which he called ,god1 as an absolutely perfect1 impersonal ,being1 a substance whose nature is constituted by two 8attributes0-- thought and spatial extension4 ,when ,spinoza speaks of love of ,god1 in which he considered happiness to consist1 he means knowledge #acb and contemplation of the order of nature1 including human nature1 which is subject to fixed1 invariable laws4 ,he rejects free-will and the 8superstition10 as he calls it1 of final causes in nature4 ,if we want to label his philosophy1 we may say that it is a form of pantheism4 ,it has often been described as atheism4 ,if atheism means1 as ,i suppose in ordinary use it is generally taken to mean1 rejection of a personal ,god1 ,spinoza was an atheist4 ,it should be observed that in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries atheist was used in the wildest way as a term of abuse for freethinkers1 and when we read of atheists 7except in careful writers7 we may generally assume that the persons so stigmatized were really deists1 that is1 they believed in a personal ,god but not in ,revelation4 #a ,spinoza's daring philosophy was not in harmony with the general trend of speculation at the time1 and did not exert any profound influence on thought till a much later period4 ,the thinker whose writings appealed most to the men of his age and were most opportune and effective was ,john ,locke1 who professed more or less orthodox ,anglicanism4 ,his great contribution to philosophy is equivalent to a very powerful defence #acc of reason against the usurpations of authority4 ,the object of his ,essay on the ,human ,understanding 7#afij7 is to show that all knowledge is derived from experience4 ,he subordinated faith completely to reason4 ,while he accepted the ,christian revelation1 he held that revelation if it contradicted the higher tribunal of reason must be rejected1 and that revelation cannot give us knowledge as certain as the knowledge which reason gives4 8,he that takes away reason to make room for revelation puts out the light of both2 and does much what the same as if he would persuade a man to put out his eyes1 the better to receive the remote light of an invisible star by a telescope40 ,he wrote a book to show that the ,christian revelation is not contrary to reason1 and its title1 ,the ,reasonableness of ,christianity1 sounds the note of all religious controversy in ,england during the next hundred years4 ,both the orthodox and their opponents warmly agreed that reasonableness was the only test of the claims of revealed religion4 ,it was under the direct influence of ,locke that ,toland1 an ,irishman who had been converted from ,roman ,catholicism1 composed a sensational book1 ,christianity ,not ,mysterious 7#afif74 ,he assumes that ,christianity is true and argues that there can be no mysteries in it1 because mysteries1 that #acd is1 unintelligible dogmas1 cannot be accepted by reason4 ,and if a reasonable ,deity gave a revelation1 its purpose must be to enlighten1 not to puzzle4 ,the assumption of the truth of ,christianity was a mere pretence1 as an intelligent reader could not fail to see4 ,the work was important because it drew the logical inference from ,locke's philosophy1 and it had a wide circulation4 ,lady ,mary ,wortley ,montagu met a ,turkish ,effendi at ,belgrade who asked her for news of ,mr4 ,toland4 ,it is characteristic of this stage of the struggle between reason and authority that 7excepting the leading ,french thinkers in the eighteenth century7 the rationalists1 who attacked theology1 generally feigned to acknowledge the truth of the ideas which they were assailing4 ,they pretended that their speculations did not affect religion2 they could separate the domains of reason and of faith2 they could show that ,revelation was superfluous without questioning it2 they could do homage to orthodoxy and lay down views with which orthodoxy was irreconcilable4 ,the errors which they exposed in the sphere of reason were ironically allowed to be truths in the sphere of theology4 ,the mediaeval principle of double truth and other shifts were resorted to1 in self-protection #ace against the tyranny of orthodoxy--though they did not always avail2 and in reading much of the rationalistic literature of this period we have to read between the lines4 ,bayle is an interesting instance4 ,if ,locke's philosophy1 by setting authority in its place and deriving all knowledge from experience1 was a powerful aid to rationalism1 his contemporary ,bayle worked in the same direction by the investigation of history4 ,driven from ,france 7see above1 p4 #ajg71 he lived at ,amsterdam1 where he published his ,philosophical ,dictionary4 ,he was really a freethinker1 but he never dropped the disguise of orthodoxy1 and this lends a particular piquancy to his work4 ,he takes a delight in marshalling all the objections which heretics had made to essential ,christian dogmas4 ,he exposed without mercy the crimes and brutalities of ,david1 and showed that this favourite of the ,almighty was a person with whom one would refuse to shake hands4 ,there was a great outcry at this unedifying candour4 ,bayle1 in replying1 adopted the attitude of ,montaigne and ,pascal1 and opposed faith to reason4 ,the theological virtue of faith1 he said1 consists in believing revealed truths simply and solely on ,god's authority4 ,if you believe in the immortality of the soul for #acf philosophical reasons1 you are orthodox1 but you have no part in faith4 ,the merit of faith becomes greater1 in proportion as the revealed truth surpasses all the powers of our mind2 the more incomprehensible the truth and the more repugnant to reason1 the greater is the sacrifice we make in accepting it1 the deeper our submission to ,god4 ,therefore a merciless inventory of the objections which reason has to urge against fundamental doctrines serves to exalt the merits of faith4 ,the ,dictionary was also criticized for the justice done to the moral excellencies of persons who denied the existence of ,god4 ,bayle replies that if he had been able to find any atheistical thinkers who lived bad lives1 he would have been delighted to dwell on their vices1 but he knew of none such4 ,as for the criminals you meet in history1 whose abominable actions make you tremble1 their impieties and blasphemies prove they believed in a ,divinity4 ,this is a natural consequence of the theological doctrine that the ,devil1 who is incapable of atheism1 is the instigator of all the sins of men4 ,for man's wickedness must clearly resemble that of the ,devil and must therefore be joined to a belief in ,god's existence1 since the ,devil is not an atheist4 ,and is it not a proof of the infinite wisdom of ,god that the worst criminals #acg are not atheists1 and that most of the atheists whose names are recorded have been honest men8 ,by this arrangement ,providence sets bounds to the corruption of man2 for if atheism and moral wickedness were united in the same persons1 the societies of earth would be exposed to a fatal inundation of sin4 ,there was much more in the same vein2 and the upshot was1 under the thin veil of serving faith1 to show that the ,christian dogmas were essentially unreasonable4 ,bayle's work1 marked by scholarship and extraordinary learning1 had a great influence in ,england as well as in ,france4 ,it supplied weapons to assailants of ,christianity in both countries4 ,at first the assault was carried on with most vigour and ability by the ,english deists1 who1 though their writings are little read now1 did memorable work by their polemic against the authority of revealed religion4 ,the controversy between the deists and their orthodox opponents turned on the question whether the ,deity of natural religion --the ,god whose existence1 as was thought1 could be proved by reason--can be identified with the author of the ,christian revelation4 ,to the deists this seemed impossible4 ,the nature of the alleged revelation seemed inconsistent with the character #ach of the ,god to whom reason pointed4 ,the defenders of revelation1 at least all the most competent1 agreed with the deists in making reason supreme1 and through this reliance on reason some of them fell into heresies4 ,clarke1 for instance1 one of the ablest1 was very unsound on the dogma of the ,trinity4 ,it is also to be noticed that with both sections the interest of morality was the principal motive4 ,the orthodox held that the revealed doctrine of future rewards and punishments is necessary for morality2 the deists1 that morality depends on reason alone1 and that revelation contains a great deal that is repugnant to moral ideals4 ,throughout the eighteenth century morality was the guiding consideration with ,anglican ,churchmen1 and religious emotion1 finding no satisfaction within the ,church1 was driven1 as it were1 outside1 and sought an outlet in the ,methodism of ,wesley and ,whitefield4 ,spinoza had laid down the principle that ,scripture must be interpreted like any other book 7#afgj71 #b and with the deists this principle was fundamental4 ,in order to avoid persecution they generally veiled their conclusions #aci under sufficiently thin disguises4 ,hitherto the ,press ,licensing ,act 7#affb7 had very effectually prevented the publication of heterodox works1 and it is from orthodox works denouncing infidel opinions that we know how rationalism was spreading4 ,but in #afie1 the ,press ,law was allowed to drop1 and immediately deistic literature began to appear4 ,there was1 however1 the danger of prosecution under the ,blasphemy laws4 ,there were three legal weapons for coercing those who attacked ,christianity3 7#a7 ,the ,ecclesiastical ,courts had and have the power of imprisoning for a maximum term of six months1 for atheism1 blasphemy1 heresy1 and damnable opinions4 7#b7 ,the common law as interpreted by ,lord ,chief ,justice ,hale in #afgf1 when a certain ,taylor was charged with having said that religion was a cheat and blasphemed against ,christ4 ,the accused was condemned to a fine and the pillory by the ,judge1 who ruled that the ,court of ,king's ,bench has jurisdiction in such a case1 inasmuch as blasphemous words of the kind are an offence against the laws and the ,state1 and to speak against ,christianity is to speak in subversion of the law1 since ,christianity is 8parcel of the laws of ,england40 7#c7 ,the statute of #afih enacts that if any person educated in the ,christian religion 8shall by #adj writing1 printing1 teaching1 or advised speaking deny any one of the persons in the ,holy ,trinity to be ,god1 or shall assert or maintain there are more gods than one1 or shall deny the ,christian religion to be true1 or shall deny the ,holy ,scriptures of the ,old and ,new ,testament to be of divine authority10 is convicted1 he shall for the first offence be adjudged incapable to hold any public offices or employments1 and on the second shall lose his civil rights and be imprisoned for three years4 ,this ,statute expressly states as its motive the fact that 8many persons have of late years openly avowed and published many blasphemous and impious opinions contrary to the doctrine and principles of the ,christian religion40 ,as a matter of fact1 most trials for blasphemy during the past two hundred years fall under the second head4 ,but the new ,statute of #afih was very intimidating1 and we can easily understand how it drove heterodox writers to ambiguous disguises4 ,one of these disguises was allegorical interpretation of ,scripture4 ,they showed that literal interpretation led to absurdities or to inconsistencies with the wisdom and justice of ,god1 and pretended to infer that allegorical interpretation must be substituted4 ,but they meant the reader to reject their pretended #ada solution and draw a conclusion damaging to ,revelation4 ,among the arguments used in favour of the truth of ,revelation the fulfilment of prophecies and the miracles of the ,new ,testament were conspicuous4 ,anthony ,collins1 a country gentleman who was a disciple of ,locke1 published in #agcc his ,discourse on the ,grounds and ,reasons of the ,christian ,religion1 in which he drastically exposed the weakness of the evidence for fulfilment of prophecy1 depending as it does on forced and unnatural figurative interpretations4 ,twenty years before he had written a ,discourse of ,free-thinking 7in which ,bayle's influence is evident7 pleading for free discussion and the reference of all religious questions to reason4 ,he complained of the general intolerance which prevailed2 but the same facts which testify to intolerance testify also to the spread of unbelief4 ,collins escaped with comparative impunity1 but ,thomas ,woolston1 a ,fellow of ,sidney ,sussex ,college1 ,cambridge1 who wrote six aggressive ,discourses on the ,miracles of our ,saviour 7#agbg--agcj7 paid the penalty for his audacity4 ,deprived of his ,fellowship1 he was prosecuted for libel1 and sentenced to a fine of #ajj and a year's imprisonment4 ,unable to pay1 he died in prison4 ,he does #adb not adopt the line of arguing that miracles are incredible or impossible4 ,he examines the chief miracles related in the ,gospels1 and shows with great ability and shrewd common sense that they are absurd or unworthy of the performer4 ,he pointed out1 as ,huxley was to point out in a controversy with ,gladstone1 that the miraculous driving of devils into a herd of swine was an unwarrantable injury to somebody's property4 ,on the story of the ,divine blasting of the fig tree1 he remarks3 8,what if a yeoman of ,kent should go to look for pippins in his orchard at ,easter 7the supposed time that ,jesus sought for these figs7 and because of a disappointment cut down his trees8 ,what then would his neighbours make of him8 ,nothing less than a laughing-stock2 and if the story got into our ,publick ,news1 he would be the jest and ridicule of mankind40 ,or take his comment on the miracle of the ,pool of ,bethesda1 where an angel used to trouble the waters and the man who first entered the pool was cured of his infirmity4 8,an odd and a merry way of conferring a ,divine mercy4 ,and one would think that the angels of ,god did this for their own diversion more than to do good to mankind4 ,just as some throw a bone among a kennel of hounds for the pleasure of seeing them #adc quarrel for it1 or as others cast a piece of money among a company of boys for the sport of seeing them scramble for it1 so was the pastime of the angels here40 ,in dealing with the healing of the woman who suffered from a bloody flux1 he asks3 8,what if we had been told of the ,pope's curing an haemorrhage like this before us1 what would ,protestants have said to it8 ,why1 #8that a foolish1 credulous1 and superstitious woman had fancied herself cured of some slight indisposition1 and the crafty ,pope and his adherents1 aspiring after popular applause1 magnified the presumed cure into a miracle4' ,the application of such a supposed story of a miracle wrought by the ,pope is easy2 and if ,infidels1 ,jews1 and ,mahometans1 who have no better opinion of ,jesus than we have of the ,pope1 should make it1 there's no help for it40 ,woolston professed no doubts of the inspiration of ,scripture4 ,while he argued that it was out of the question to suppose the miracles literally true1 he pretended to believe in the fantastic theory that they were intended allegorically as figures of ,christ's mysterious operations in the soul of man4 ,origen1 a not very orthodox ,christian ,father1 had employed the allegorical method1 and ,woolston quotes him in his favour4 ,his #add vigorous criticisms vary in value1 but many of them hit the nail on the head1 and the fashion of some modern critics to pass over ,woolston's productions as unimportant because they are 8ribald0 or coarse1 is perfectly unjust4 ,the pamphlets had an enormous sale1 and ,woolston's notoriety is illustrated by the anecdote of the 8jolly young woman0 who met him walking abroad and accosted him with 8,you old rogue1 are you not hanged yet80 ,mr4 ,woolston answered1 8,good woman1 ,i know you not2 pray what have ,i done to offend you80 8,you have writ against my ,saviour10 she said2 8what would become of my poor sinful soul if it was not for my dear ,saviour80 ,about the same time1 ,matthew ,tindal 7a ,fellow of ,all ,souls7 attacked ,revelation from a more general point of view4 ,in his ,christianity as old as the ,creation 7#agcj7 he undertook to show that the ,bible as a revelation is superfluous1 for it adds nothing to natural religion1 which ,god revealed to man from the very first by the sole light of reason4 ,he argues that those who defend ,revealed religion by its agreement with ,natural religion1 and thus set up a double government of reason and authority1 fall between the two4 8,it 's an odd jumble10 he observes1 8to prove the truth of a book by the truth #ade of the doctrines it contains1 and at the same time conclude those doctrines to be true because contained in that book40 ,he goes on to criticize the ,bible in detail4 ,in order to maintain its infallibility1 without doing violence to reason1 you have1 when you find irrational statements1 to torture them and depart from the literal sense4 ,would you think that a ,mohammedan was governed by his ,koran1 who on all occasions departed from the literal sense8 8,nay1 would you not tell him that his inspired book fell infinitely short of ,cicero's uninspired writings1 where there is no such occasion to recede from the letter80 ,as to chronological and physical errors1 which seemed to endanger the infallibility of the ,scriptures1 a bishop had met the argument by saying1 reasonably enough1 that in the ,bible ,god speaks according to the conceptions of those to whom he speaks1 and that it is not the business of ,revelation to rectify their opinions in such matters4 ,tindal made this rejoinder3-- 8,is there no difference between ,god's not rectifying men's sentiments in those matters and using himself such sentiments as needs be rectified2 or between ,god's not mending men's logic and rhetoric where 't is defective and using such himself2 or between ,god's #adf not contradicting vulgar notions and confirming them by speaking according to them8 ,can infinite wisdom despair of gaining or keeping people's affections without having recourse to such mean acts80 ,he exposes with considerable effect the monstrosity of the doctrine of exclusive salvation4 ,must we not consider1 he asks1 whether one can be said to be sent as a ,saviour of mankind1 if he comes to shut ,heaven's gate against those to whom1 before he came1 it was open provided they followed the dictates of their reason8 ,he criticizes the inconsistency of the impartial and universal goodness of ,god1 known to us by the light of nature1 with acts committed by ,jehovah or his prophets4 ,take the cases in which the order of nature is violated to punish men for crimes of which they were not guilty1 such as ,elijah's hindering rain from falling for three years and a half4 ,if ,god could break in upon the ordinary rules of his providence to punish the innocent for the guilty1 we have no guarantee that if he deals thus with us in this life1 he will not act in the same way in the life to come1 8since if the eternal rules of justice are once broken how can we imagine any stop80 ,but the ideals of holiness and justice in the ,old ,testament are strange indeed4 ,the holier men #adg are represented to be1 the more cruel they seem and the more addicted to cursing4 ,how surprising to find the holy prophet ,elisha cursing in the name of the ,lord little children for calling him ,bald- pate6 ,and1 what is still more surprising1 two she-bears immediately devoured forty-two little children4 ,i have remarked that theologians at this time generally took the line of basing ,christianity on reason and not on faith4 ,an interesting little book1 ,christianity not founded on ,argument1 couched in the form of a letter to a young gentleman at ,oxford1 by ,henry ,dodwell 7,junior71 appeared in #agda1 and pointed out the dangers of such confidence in reason4 ,it is an ironical development of the principle of ,bayle1 working out the thesis that ,christianity is essentially unreasonable1 and that if you want to believe1 reasoning is fatal4 ,the cultivation of faith and reasoning produce contrary effects2 the philosopher is disqualified for ,divine influences by his very progress in carnal wisdom2 the ,gospel must be received with all the obsequious submission of a babe who has no other disposition but to learn his lesson4 ,christ did not propose his doctrines to investigation2 he did not lay the arguments for his mission before his disciples and give them time to consider #adh calmly of their force1 and liberty to determine as their reason should direct them2 the apostles had no qualifications for the task1 being the most artless and illiterate persons living4 ,dodwell exposes the absurdity of the ,protestant position4 ,to give all men liberty to judge for themselves and to expect at the same time that they shall be of the ,preacher's mind is such a scheme for unanimity as one would scarcely imagine any one could be weak enough to devise in speculation and much less that any could ever be found hardy enough to avow and propose it to practice4 ,the men of ,rome 8shall rise up in the judgment 7of all considering persons7 against this generation and shall condemn it2 for they invented but the one absurdity of infallibility1 and behold a greater absurdity than infallibility is here40 ,i have still to speak of the 7,third7 ,earl of ,shaftesbury1 whose style has rescued his writings from entire neglect4 ,his special interest was ethics4 ,while the valuable work of most of the heterodox writers of this period lay in their destructive criticism of supernatural religion1 they clung1 as we have seen1 to what was called natural religion-- the belief in a kind and wise personal ,god1 who created the world1 governs it by natural laws1 and desires our happiness4 ,the idea #adi was derived from ancient philosophers and had been revived by ,lord ,herbert of ,cherbury in his ,latin treatise ,on ,truth 7in the reign of ,james ,i74 ,the deists contended that this was a sufficient basis for morality and that the ,christian inducements to good behaviour were unnecessary4 ,shaftesbury in his ,inquiry concerning ,virtue 7#afii7 debated the question and argued that the scheme of heaven and hell1 with the selfish hopes and fears which they inspire1 corrupts morality and that the only worthy motive for conduct is the beauty of virtue in itself4 ,he does not even consider deism a necessary assumption for a moral code2 he admits that the opinion of atheists does not undermine ethics4 ,but he thinks that the belief in a good governor of the universe is a powerful support to the practice of virtue4 ,he is a thorough optimist1 and is perfectly satisfied with the admirable adaptation of means to ends1 whereby it is the function of one animal to be food for another4 ,he makes no attempt to reconcile the red claws and teeth of nature with the beneficence of its powerful artist4 8,in the main all things are kindly and well disposed40 ,the atheist might have said that he preferred to be at the mercy of blind chance than in the hands of an autocrat who1 if he pleased ,lord ,shaftesbury's sense #aej of order1 had created flies to be devoured by spiders4 ,but this was an aspect of the universe which did not much trouble thinkers in the eighteenth century4 ,on the other hand1 the character of the ,god of the ,old ,testament roused ,shaftesbury's aversion4 ,he attacks ,scripture not directly1 but by allusion or with irony4 ,he hints that if there is a ,god1 he would be less displeased with atheists than with those who accepted him in the guise of ,jehovah4 ,as ,plutarch said1 8,i had rather men should say of me that there neither is nor ever was such a one as ,plutarch1 than they should say #8,there was a ,plutarch1 an unsteady1 changeable1 easily provokable and revengeful man4' 0 ,shaftesbury's significance is that he built up a positive theory of morals1 and although it had no philosophical depth1 his influence on ,french and ,german thinkers of the eighteenth century was immense4 ,in some ways perhaps the ablest of the deists1 and certainly the most scholarly1 was ,rev4 ,conyers ,middleton1 who remained within the ,church4 ,he supported ,christianity on grounds of utility4 ,even if it is an imposture1 he said1 it would be wrong to destroy it4 ,for it is established by law and it has a long tradition behind it4 ,some traditional religion is necessary and it would #aea be hopeless to supplant ,christianity by reason4 ,but his writings contain effective arguments which go to undermine ,revelation4 ,the most important was his ,free ,inquiry into ,christian miracles 7#agdh71 which put in a new and dangerous light an old question3 ,at what time did the ,church cease to have the power of performing miracles8 ,we shall see presently how ,gibbon applied ,middleton's method4 ,the leading adversaries of the deists appealed1 like them1 to reason1 and1 in appealing to reason1 did much to undermine authority4 ,the ablest defence of the faith1 ,bishop ,butler's ,analogy 7#agcf71 is suspected of having raised more doubts than it appeased4 ,this was the experience of ,william ,pitt the ,younger1 and the ,analogy made ,james ,mill 7the utilitarian7 an unbeliever4 ,the deists1 argued that the unjust and cruel ,god of ,revelation could not be the ,god of nature2 ,butler pointed to nature and said1 ,there you behold cruelty and injustice4 ,the argument was perfectly good against the optimism of ,shaftesbury1 but it plainly admitted of the conclusion--opposite to that which ,butler wished to establish--that a just and beneficent ,god does not exist4 ,butler is driven to fall back on the sceptical argument that we are extremely ignorant2 that all things #aeb are possible1 even eternal hell fire2 and that therefore the safe and prudent course is to accept the ,christian doctrine4 ,it may be remarked that this reasoning1 with a few modifications1 could be used in favour of other religions1 at ,mecca or at ,timbuctoo4 ,he has1 in effect1 revived the argument used by ,pascal that if there is one chance in any very large number that ,christianity is true1 it is a man's interest to be a ,christian2 for1 if it prove false1 it will do him no harm to have believed it2 if it prove true1 he will be infinitely the gainer4 ,butler seeks indeed to show that the chances in favour amount to a probability1 but his argument is essentially of the same intellectual and moral value as ,pascal's4 ,it has been pointed out that it leads by an easy logical step from the ,anglican to the ,roman ,church4 ,catholics and ,protestants 7as ,king ,henry ,,iv of ,france argued7 agree that a ,catholic may be saved2 the ,catholics assert that a ,protestant will be damned2 therefore the safe course is to embrace ,catholicism4 #c ,i have dwelt at some length upon some of the ,english deists1 because1 while they occupy an important place in the history of #aec rationalism in ,england1 they also supplied1 along with ,bayle1 a great deal of the thought which1 manipulated by brilliant writers on the other side of the ,channel1 captured the educated classes in ,france4 ,we are now in the age of ,voltaire4 ,he was a convinced deist4 ,he considered that the nature of the universe proved that it was made by a conscious architect1 he held that ,god was required in the interests of conduct1 and he ardently combated atheism4 ,his great achievements were his efficacious labour in the cause of toleration1 and his systematic warfare against superstitions4 ,he was profoundly influenced by ,english thinkers1 especially ,locke and ,bolingbroke4 ,this statesman had concealed his infidelity during his lifetime except from his intimates2 he had lived long as an exile in ,france2 and his rationalistic essays were published 7#aged7 after his death4 ,voltaire1 whose literary genius converted the work of the ,english thinkers into a world-force1 did not begin his campaign against ,christianity till after the middle of the century1 when superstitious practices and religious persecutions were becoming a scandal in his country4 ,he assailed the ,catholic ,church in every field with ridicule and satire4 ,in a little work called ,the ,tomb of ,fanaticism 7written #agcf1 #aed published #agfg71 he begins by observing that a man who accepts his religion 7as most people do7 without examining it is like an ox which allows itself to be harnessed1 and proceeds to review the difficulties in the ,bible1 the rise of ,christianity1 and the course of ,church history2 from which he concludes that every sensible man should hold the ,christian sect in horror4 8,men are blind to prefer an absurd and sanguinary creed1 supported by executioners and surrounded by fiery faggots1 a creed which can only be approved by those to whom it gives power and riches1 a particular creed only accepted in a small part of the world--to a simple and universal religion40 ,in the ,sermon of the ,fifty and the ,questions of ,zapata we can see what he owed to ,bayle and ,english critics1 but his touch is lighter and his irony more telling4 ,his comment on geographical mistakes in the ,old ,testament is3 8,god was evidently not strong in geography40 ,having called attention to the 8horrible crime0 of ,lot's wife in looking backward1 and her conversion into a pillar of salt1 he hopes that the stories of ,scripture will make us better1 if they do not make us more enlightened4 ,one of his favourite methods is to approach ,christian doctrines as a person who had just heard of the existence of ,christians or ,jews for the first time in his life4 #aee ,his drama1 ,saul 7#agfc71 which the police tried to suppress1 presents the career of ,david1 the man after ,god's own heart1 in all its naked horror4 ,the scene in which ,samuel reproves ,saul for not having slain ,agag will give an idea of the spirit of the piece4 ,,samuel3 ,god commands me to tell you that he repents of having made you king4 ,,saul3 ,god repents6 ,only they who commit errors repent4 ,his eternal wisdom cannot be unwise4 ,god cannot commit errors4 ,,samuel3 ,he can repent of having set on the throne those who do4 ,,saul3 ,well1 who does not8 ,tell me1 what is my fault8 ,,samuel3 ,you have pardoned a king4 ,,agag3 ,what6 ,is the fairest of virtues considered a crime in ,judea8 ,,samuel 7to ,agag73 ,silence6 do not blaspheme4 7,to ,saul74 ,saul1 formerly king of the ,jews1 did not ,god command you by my mouth to destroy all the ,amalekites1 without sparing women1 or maidens1 or children at the breast8 ,,agag3 ,your god--gave such a command6 ,you are mistaken1 you meant to say1 your devil4 ,,samuel3 ,saul1 did you obey ,god8 ,,saul3 ,i did not suppose such a command #aef was positive4 ,i thought that goodness was the first attribute of the ,supreme ,being1 and that a compassionate heart could not displease him4 ,,samuel3 ,you are mistaken1 unbeliever4 ,god reproves you1 your sceptre will pass into other hands4 ,perhaps no writer has ever roused more hatred in ,christendom than ,voltaire4 ,he was looked on as a sort of anti-,christ4 ,that was natural2 his attacks were so tremendously effective at the time4 ,but he has been sometimes decried on the ground that he only demolished and made no effort to build up where he had pulled down4 ,this is a narrow complaint4 ,it might be replied that when a sewer is spreading plague in a town1 we cannot wait to remove it till we have a new system of drains1 and it may fairly be said that religion as practised in contemporary ,france was a poisonous sewer4 ,but the true answer is that knowledge1 and therefore civilization1 are advanced by criticism and negation1 as well as by construction and positive discovery4 ,when a man has the talent to attack with effect falsehood1 prejudice1 and imposture1 it is his duty1 if there are any social duties1 to use it4 ,for constructive thinking we must go to the other great leader of ,french thought1 #aeg ,rousseau1 who contributed to the growth of freedom in a different way4 ,he was a deist1 but his deism1 unlike that of ,voltaire1 was religious and emotional4 ,he regarded ,christianity with a sort of reverent scepticism4 ,but his thought was revolutionary and repugnant to orthodoxy2 it made against authority in every sphere2 and it had an enormous influence4 ,the clergy perhaps dreaded his theories more than the scoffs and negations of ,voltaire4 ,for some years he was a fugitive on the face of the earth4 mile1 his brilliant contribution to the theory of education1 appeared in #agfb4 ,it contains some remarkable pages on religion1 8the profession of faith of a ,savoyard vicar10 in which the author's deistic faith is strongly affirmed and revelation and theology rejected4 ,the book was publicly burned in ,paris and an order issued for ,rousseau's arrest4 ,forced by his friends to flee1 he was debarred from returning to ,geneva1 for the government of that canton followed the example of ,paris4 ,he sought refuge in the canton of ,bern and was ordered to quit4 ,he then fled to the principality of ,neufchtel which belonged to ,prussia4 ,frederick the ,great1 the one really tolerant ruler of the age1 gave him protection1 but he was persecuted and calumniated by the local clergy1 who but for ,frederick would #aeh have expelled him1 and he went to ,england for a few months 7#agff71 then returning to ,france1 where he was left unmolested till his death4 ,the religious views of ,rousseau are only a minor point in his heretical speculations4 ,it was by his daring social and political theories that he set the world on fire4 ,his ,social ,contract in which these theories were set forth was burned at ,geneva4 ,though his principles will not stand criticism for a moment1 and though his doctrine worked mischief by its extraordinary power of turning men into fanatics1 yet it contributed to progress1 by helping to discredit privilege and to establish the view that the object of a ,state is to secure the wellbeing of all its members4 ,deism--whether in the semi-,christian form of ,rousseau or the anti- ,christian form of ,voltaire--was a house built on the sand1 and thinkers arose in ,france1 ,england1 and ,germany to shatter its foundations4 ,in ,france1 it proved to be only a half-way inn to atheism4 ,in #aggj1 ,french readers were startled by the appearance of ,baron ,d',holbach's ,system of ,nature1 in which ,god's existence and the immortality of the soul were denied and the world declared to be matter spontaneously moving4 ,holbach was a friend of ,diderot1 who had also come to reject deism4 ,all the leading #aei ideas in the revolt against the ,church had a place in ,diderot's great work1 the ,encyclopedia1 in which a number of leading thinkers collaborated with him4 ,it was not merely a scientific book of reference4 ,it was representative of the whole movement of the enemies of faith4 ,it was intended to lead men from ,christianity with its original sin to a new conception of the world as a place which can be made agreeable and in which the actual evils are due not to radical faults of human nature but to perverse institutions and perverse education4 ,to divert interest from the dogmas of religion to the improvement of society1 to persuade the world that man's felicity depends not on ,revelation but on social transformation--this was what ,diderot and ,rousseau in their different ways did so much to effect4 ,and their work influenced those who did not abandon orthodoxy2 it affected the spirit of the ,church itself4 ,contrast the ,catholic ,church in ,france in the eighteenth and in the nineteenth century4 ,without the work of ,voltaire1 ,rousseau1 ,diderot1 and their fellow-combatants1 would it have been reformed8 8,the ,christian ,churches0 7,i quote ,lord ,morley7 8are assimilating as rapidly as their formulae will permit1 the new light and the more generous moral ideas and the higher spirituality of #afj teachers who have abandoned all churches and who are systematically denounced as enemies of the souls of men40 ,in ,england the prevalent deistic thought did not lead to the same intellectual consequences as in ,france2 yet ,hume1 the greatest ,english philosopher of the century1 showed that the arguments commonly adduced for a personal ,god were untenable4 ,i may first speak of his discussion on miracles in his ,essay on ,miracles and in his philosophical ,inquiry concerning ,human ,understanding 7#agdh74 ,hitherto the credibility of miracles had not been submitted to a general examination independent of theological assumptions4 ,hume1 pointing out that there must be a uniform experience against every miraculous event 7otherwise it would not merit the name of miracle71 and that it will require stronger testimony to establish a miracle than an event which is not contrary to experience1 lays down the general maxim that 8no testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle unless the testimony is of such a kind that its falsehood would be more miraculous than the fact which it endeavours to establish40 ,but1 as a matter of fact1 no testimony exists of which the falsehood would be a prodigy4 ,we cannot find in history any miracle attested by a sufficient number of men of such unquestionable good #afa sense1 education1 and learning1 as to secure us against all delusion in themselves2 of such undoubted integrity as to place them beyond all suspicion of any design to deceive others2 of such credit in the eyes of mankind as to have a great deal to lose in case of their being detected in any falsehood1 and at the same time attesting facts performed in such a public manner as to render detection unavoidable --all which circumstances are requisite to give us a full assurance in the testimony of men4 ,in the ,dialogues on ,natural ,religion which were not published till after his death 7#aggf71 ,hume made an attack on the 8argument from design10 on which deists and ,christians alike relied to prove the existence of a ,deity4 ,the argument is that the world presents clear marks of design1 endless adaptation of means to ends1 which can only be explained as due to the deliberate plan of a powerful intelligence4 ,hume disputes the inference on the ground that a mere intelligent being is not a sufficient cause to explain the effect4 ,for the argument must be that the system of the material world demands as a cause a corresponding system of interconnected ideas2 but such a mental system would demand an explanation of its existence just as much as the material world2 and thus we find ourselves #afb committed to an endless series of causes4 ,but in any case1 even if the argument held1 it would prove only the existence of a ,deity whose powers1 though superior to man's1 might be very limited and whose workmanship might be very imperfect4 ,for this world may be very faulty1 compared to a superior standard4 ,it may be the first rude experiment 8of some infant ,deity who afterwards abandoned it1 ashamed of his lame performance02 or the work of some inferior ,deity at which his superior would scoff2 or the production of some old superannuated ,deity which since his death has pursued an adventurous career from the first impulse which he gave it4 ,an argument which leaves such deities in the running is worse than useless for the purposes of ,deism or of ,christianity4 ,the sceptical philosophy of ,hume had less influence on the general public than ,gibbon's ,decline and ,fall of the ,roman ,empire4 ,of the numerous freethinking books that appeared in ,england in the eighteenth century1 this is the only one which is still a widely read classic4 ,in what a lady friend of ,dr4 ,johnson called 8the two offensive chapters0 7,,xv and ,,xvi7 the causes of the rise and success of ,christianity are for the first time critically investigated as a simple historical phenomenon4 ,like most freethinkers of the #afc time ,gibbon thought it well to protect himself and his work against the possibility of prosecution by paying ironical lip-homage to the orthodox creed4 ,but even if there had been no such danger1 he could not have chosen a more incisive weapon for his merciless criticism of orthodox opinion than the irony which he wielded with superb ease4 ,having pointed out that the victory of ,christianity is obviously and satisfactorily explained by the convincing evidence of the doctrine and by the ruling providence of its great ,author1 he proceeds 8with becoming submission0 to inquire into the secondary causes4 ,he traces the history of the faith up to the time of ,constantine in such a way as clearly to suggest that the hypothesis of divine interposition is superfluous and that we have to do with a purely human development4 ,he marshals1 with ironical protests1 the obvious objections to the alleged evidence for supernatural control4 ,he does not himself criticize ,moses and the prophets1 but he reproduces the objections which were made against their authority by 8the vain science of the gnostics40 ,he notes that the doctrine of immortality is omitted in the law of ,moses1 but this doubtless was a mysterious dispensation of ,providence4 ,we cannot entirely remove 8the imputation of ignorance and #afd obscurity which has been so arrogantly cast on the first proselytes of ,christianity10 but we must 8convert the occasion of scandal into a subject of edification0 and remember that 8the lower we depress the temporal condition of the first ,christians1 the more reason we shall find to admire their merit and success40 ,gibbon's treatment of miracles from the purely historical point of view 7he owed a great deal to ,middleton1 see above1 p4 #aej7 was particularly disconcerting4 ,in the early age of ,christianity 8the laws of nature were frequently suspended for the benefit of the ,church4 ,but the sages of ,greece and ,rome turned aside from the awful spectacle1 and1 pursuing the ordinary occupations of life and study1 appeared unconscious of any alterations in the moral or physical government of the world4 ,under the reign of ,tiberius the whole earth1 or at least a celebrated province of the ,roman ,empire1 was involved in a praeternatural darkness of three hours4 ,even this miraculous event1 which ought to have excited the wonder1 the curiosity1 and the devotion of mankind1 passed without notice in an age of science and history4 ,it happened during the lifetime of ,seneca and the elder ,pliny1 who must have experienced the immediate effects1 or received the earliest intelligence1 of the prodigy4 ,each of these #afe philosophers in a laborious work has recorded all the great phenomena of nature1 earthquakes1 meteors1 comets1 and eclipses1 which his indefatigable curiosity could collect4 ,both the one and the other have omitted to mention the greatest phenomenon to which the mortal eye has been witness since the creation of the globe40 ,how 8shall we excuse the supine inattention of the pagan and philosophic world to those evidences which were presented by the hand of ,omnipotence1 not to their reason1 but to their senses80 ,again1 if every believer is convinced of the reality of miracles1 every reasonable man is convinced of their cessation4 ,yet every age bears testimony to miracles1 and the testimony seems no less respectable than that of the preceding generation4 ,when did they cease8 ,how was it that the generation which saw the last genuine miracles performed could not distinguish them from the impostures which followed8 ,had men so soon forgotten 8the style of the divine artist08 ,the inference is that genuine and spurious miracles are indistinguishable4 ,but the credulity or 8softness of temper0 among early believers was beneficial to the cause of truth and religion4 8,in modern times1 a latent and even involuntary scepticism adheres to the most pious dispositions4 ,their #aff admission of supernatural truths is much less an active consent than a cold and passive acquiescence4 ,accustomed long since to observe and to respect the invariable order of nature1 our reason1 or at least our imagination1 is not sufficiently prepared to sustain the visible action of the ,deity40 ,gibbon had not the advantage of the minute critical labours which in the following century were expended on his sources of information1 but his masterly exposure of the conventional history of the early ,church remains in many of its most important points perfectly valid to-day4 ,i suspect that his artillery has produced more effect on intelligent minds in subsequent generations than the archery of ,voltaire4 ,for his book became indispensable as the great history of the ,middle ,ages2 the most orthodox could not do without it2 and the poison must have often worked4 ,we have seen how theological controversy in the first half of the eighteenth century had turned on the question whether the revealed religion was consistent and compatible with natural religion4 ,the deistic attacks1 on this line1 were almost exhausted by the middle of the century1 and the orthodox thought that they had been satisfactorily answered4 ,but it was not enough to show that the revelation #afg is reasonable2 it was necessary to prove that it is real and rests on a solid historical basis4 ,this was the question raised in an acute form by the criticisms of ,hume and ,middleton 7#agdh7 on miracles4 ,the ablest answer was given by ,paley in his ,evidences of ,christianity 7#agid71 the only one of the apologies of that age which is still read1 though it has ceased to have any value4 ,paley's theology illustrates how orthodox opinions are coloured1 unconsciously1 by the spirit of the time4 ,he proved 7in his ,natural ,theology7 the existence of ,god by the argument from design --without taking any account of the criticisms of ,hume on that argument4 ,just as a watchmaker is inferred from a watch1 so a divine workman is inferred from contrivances in nature4 ,paley takes his instances of such contrivance largely from the organs and constitution of the human body4 ,his idea of ,god is that of an ingenious contriver dealing with rather obstinate material4 ,paley's 8,god0 7,mr4 ,leslie ,stephen remarked7 8has been civilized like man2 he has become scientific and ingenious2 he is superior to ,watt or ,priestley in devising mechanical and chemical contrivances1 and is therefore made in the image of that generation of which ,watt and ,priestley were conspicuous lights40 ,when a ,god of this kind #afh is established there is no difficulty about miracles1 and it is on miracles that ,paley bases the case for ,christianity--all other arguments are subsidiary4 ,and his proof of the ,new ,testament miracles is that the apostles who were eye-witnesses believed in them1 for otherwise they would not have acted and suffered in the cause of their new religion4 ,paley's defence is the performance of an able legal adviser to the ,almighty4 ,the list of the ,english deistic writers of the eighteenth century closes with one whose name is more familiar than any of his predecessors1 ,thomas ,paine4 ,a ,norfolk man1 he migrated to ,america and played a leading part in the ,revolution4 ,then he returned to ,england and in #agia published his ,rights of ,man in two parts4 ,i have been considering1 almost exclusively1 freedom of thought in religion1 because it may be taken as the thermometer for freedom of thought in general4 ,at this period it was as dangerous to publish revolutionary opinions in politics as in theology4 ,paine was an enthusiastic admirer of the ,american ,constitution and a supporter of the ,french ,revolution 7in which also he was to play a part74 ,his ,rights of ,man is an indictment of the monarchical form of government1 and a plea for representative democracy4 ,it had an enormous #afi sale1 a cheap edition was issued1 and the government1 finding that it was accessible to the poorer classes1 decided to prosecute4 ,paine escaped to ,france1 and received a brilliant ovation at ,calais1 which returned him as deputy to the ,national ,convention4 ,his trial for high treason came on at the end of #agib4 ,among the passages in his book1 on which the charge was founded1 were these3 8,all hereditary government is in its nature tyranny40 8,the time is not very distant when ,england will laugh at itself for sending to ,holland1 ,hanover1 ,zell1 or ,brunswick for men0 meaning ,king ,william ,,iii and ,king ,george ,i 8at the expense of a million a year who understood neither her laws1 her language1 nor her interest1 and whose capacities would scarcely have fitted them for the office of a parish constable4 ,if government could be trusted to such hands1 it must be some easy and simple thing indeed1 and materials fit for all the purposes may be found in every town and village in ,england40 ,erskine was ,paine's counsel1 and he made a fine oration in defence of freedom of speech4 8,constraint10 he said1 8is the natural parent of resistance1 and a pregnant proof that reason is not on the side of those who use it4 ,you must all remember1 gentlemen1 ,lucian's pleasant story3 ,jupiter and a countryman #agj were walking together1 conversing with great freedom and familiarity upon the subject of heaven and earth4 ,the countryman listened with attention and acquiescence while ,jupiter strove only to convince him2 but happening to hint a doubt1 ,jupiter turned hastily around and threatened him with his thunder4 #8,ah1 ha6' says the countryman1 #8now1 ,jupiter1 ,i know that you are wrong2 you are always wrong when you appeal to your thunder4' ,this is the case with me4 ,i can reason with the people of ,england1 but ,i cannot fight against the thunder of authority40 ,paine was found guilty and outlawed4 ,he soon committed a new offence by the publication of an anti-,christian work1 ,the ,age of ,reason 7#agid and #agif71 which he began to write in the ,paris prison into which he had been thrown by ,robespierre4 ,this book is remarkable as the first important ,english publication in which the ,christian scheme of salvation and the ,bible are assailed in plain language without any disguise or reserve4 ,in the second place it was written in such a way as to reach the masses4 ,and1 thirdly1 while the criticisms on the ,bible are in the same vein as those of the earlier deists1 ,paine is the first to present with force the incongruity of the ,christian scheme with the conception of the universe attained by astronomical science4 #aga 8,though it is not a direct article of the ,christian system that this world that we inhabit is the whole of the inhabitable globe1 yet it is so worked up therewith--from what is called the ,mosaic account of the creation1 the story of ,eve and the apple1 and the counterpart of that story1 the death of the ,son of ,god--that to believe otherwise 7that is1 to believe that ,god created a plurality of worlds at least as numerous as what we call stars7 renders the ,christian system of faith at once little and ridiculous1 and scatters it in the mind like feathers in the air4 ,the two beliefs cannot be held together in the same mind2 and he who thinks that he believes both has thought but little of either40 ,as an ardent deist1 who regarded nature as ,god's revelation1 ,paine was able to press this argument with particular force4 ,referring to some of the tales in the ,old ,testament1 he says3 8,when we contemplate the immensity of that ,being who directs and governs the incomprehensible ,whole1 of which the utmost ken of human sight can discover but a part1 we ought to feel shame at calling such paltry stories the ,word of ,god40 ,the book drew a reply from ,bishop ,watson1 one of those admirable eighteenth-century divines1 who admitted the right of private judgment and thought that argument #agb should be met by argument and not by force4 ,his reply had the rather significant title1 ,an ,apology for the ,bible4 ,george ,,iii remarked that he was not aware that any apology was needed for that book4 ,it is a weak defence1 but is remarkable for the concessions which it makes to several of ,paine's criticisms of ,scripture--admissions which were calculated to damage the doctrine of the infallibility of the ,bible4 ,it was doubtless in consequence of the enormous circulation of the ,age of ,reason that a ,society for the ,suppression of ,vice decided to prosecute the publisher4 ,unbelief was common among the ruling class1 but the view was firmly held that religion was necessary for the populace and that any attempt to disseminate unbelief among the lower classes must be suppressed4 ,religion was regarded as a valuable instrument to keep the poor in order4 ,it is notable that of the earlier rationalists 7apart from the case of ,woolston7 the only one who was punished was ,peter ,annet1 a schoolmaster1 who tried to popularize freethought and was sentenced for diffusing 8diabolical0 opinions to the pillory and hard labour 7#agfc74 ,paine held that the people at large had the right of access to all new ideas1 and he wrote so as to reach the people4 ,hence his book must be suppressed4 #agc ,at the trial 7#agig7 the judge placed every obstacle in the way of the defence4 ,the publisher was sentenced to a year's imprisonment4 ,this was not the end of ,paine prosecutions4 ,in #ahaa a ,third ,part of the ,age of ,reason appeared1 and ,eaton the publisher was condemned to eighteen months' imprisonment and to stand in the pillory once a month4 ,the judge1 ,lord ,ellenborough1 said in his charge1 that 8to deny the truths of the book which is the foundation of our faith has never been permitted40 ,the poet ,shelley addressed to ,lord ,ellenborough a scathing letter4 8,do you think to convert ,mr4 ,eaton to your religion by embittering his existence8 ,you might force him by torture to profess your tenets1 but he could not believe them except you should make them credible1 which perhaps exceeds your power4 ,do you think to please the ,god you worship by this exhibition of your zeal8 ,if so1 the demon to whom some nations offer human hecatombs is less barbarous than the deity of civilized society60 ,in #ahai ,richard ,carlisle was prosecuted for publishing the ,age of ,reason and sentenced to a large fine and three years' imprisonment4 ,unable to pay the fine he was kept in prison for three years4 ,his wife and sister1 who carried on the business #agd and continued to sell the book1 were fined and imprisoned soon afterwards and a whole host of shop assistants4 ,if his publishers suffered in ,england1 the author himself suffered in ,america where bigotry did all it could to make the last years of his life bitter4 ,the age of enlightenment began in ,germany in the middle of the eighteenth century4 ,in most of the ,german ,states1 thought was considerably less free than in ,england4 ,under ,frederick the ,great's father1 the philosopher ,wolff was banished from ,prussia for according to the moral teachings of the ,chinese sage ,confucius a praise which1 it was thought1 ought to be reserved for ,christianity4 ,he returned after the accession of ,frederick1 under whose tolerant rule ,prussia was an asylum for those writers who suffered for their opinions in neighbouring ,states4 ,frederick1 indeed1 held the view which was held by so many ,english rationalists of the time1 and is still held widely enough1 that freethought is not desirable for the multitude1 because they are incapable of understanding philosophy4 ,germany felt the influence of the ,english ,deists1 of the ,french freethinkers1 and of ,spinoza2 but in the ,german rationalistic propaganda of this period there is nothing very original or interesting4 #age ,the names of ,edelmann and ,bahrdt may be mentioned4 ,the works of ,edelmann1 who attacked the inspiration of the ,bible1 were burned in various cities1 and he was forced to seek ,frederick's protection at ,berlin4 ,bahrdt was more aggressive than any other writer of the time4 ,originally a preacher1 it was by slow degrees that he moved away from the orthodox faith4 ,his translation of the ,new ,testament cut short his ecclesiastical career4 ,his last years were spent as an inn-keeper4 ,his writings1 for instance his popular ,letters on the ,bible1 must have had a considerable effect1 if we may judge by the hatred which he excited among theologians4 ,it was not1 however1 in direct rationalistic propaganda1 but in literature and philosophy1 that the ,german enlightenment of this century expressed itself4 ,the most illustrious men of letters1 ,goethe 7who was profoundly influenced by ,spinoza7 and ,schiller1 stood outside the ,churches1 and the effect of their writings and of the whole literary movement of the time made for the freest treatment of human experience4 ,one ,german thinker shook the world--the philosopher ,kant4 ,his ,critic of ,pure ,reason demonstrated that when we attempt to prove by the fight of the intellect the existence of #agf ,god and the immortality of the ,soul1 we fall helplessly into contradictions4 ,his destructive criticism of the argument from design and all natural theology was more complete than that of ,hume2 and his philosophy1 different though his system was1 issued in the same practical result as that of ,locke1 to confine knowledge to experience4 ,it is true that afterwards1 in the interest of ethics1 he tried to smuggle in by a back-door the ,deity whom he had turned out by the front gate1 but the attempt was not a success4 ,his philosophy--while it led to new speculative systems in which the name of ,god was used to mean something very different from the ,deistic conception--was a significant step further in the deliverance of reason from the yoke of authority4 #a ,for the sake of simplicity ,i use 8deist0 in this sense throughout1 though 8theist0 is now the usual term4 #b ,spinoza's ,theological ,political ,treatise1 which deals with the interpretation of ,scripture1 was translated into ,english in #afhi4 #c ,see ,benn1 ,rationalism in the ,nineteenth ,century1 vol4 i1 p4 #ach seq41 for a good exposure of the fallacies and sophistries of ,butler4 ,,chapter ,,vii ,,the ,,progress ,,of ,,rationalism 7,,nineteenth ,,century7 ,,modern science1 heralded by the researches of ,copernicus1 was founded in the seventeenth century1 which saw the demonstration of the ,copernican theory1 the discovery of gravitation1 the discovery of the circulation of the blood1 and the foundation #agg of modern chemistry and physics4 ,the true nature of comets was ascertained1 and they ceased to be regarded as signs of heavenly wrath4 ,but several generations were to pass before science became1 in ,protestant countries1 an involuntary arch-enemy of theology4 ,till the nineteenth century1 it was only in minor points1 such as the movement of the earth1 that proved scientific facts seemed to conflict with ,scripture1 and it was easy enough to explain away these inconsistencies by a new interpretation of the sacred texts4 ,yet remarkable facts were accumulating which1 though not explained by science1 seemed to menace the credibility of ,biblical history4 ,if the story of ,noah's ,ark and the ,flood is true1 how was it that beasts unable to swim or fly inhabit ,america and the islands of the ,ocean8 ,and what about the new species which were constantly being found in the ,new ,world and did not exist in the ,old8 ,where did the kangaroos of ,australia drop from8 ,the only explanation compatible with received theology seemed to be the hypothesis of innumerable new acts of creation1 later than the ,flood4 ,it was in the field of natural history that scientific men of the eighteenth century suffered most from the coercion of authority4 ,linnaeus felt it in ,sweden1 ,buffon #agh in ,france4 ,buffon was compelled to retract hypotheses which he put forward about the formation of the earth in his ,natural ,history 7#agdi71 and to state that he believed implicitly in the ,bible account of ,creation4 ,at the beginning of the nineteenth century ,laplace worked out the mechanics of the universe1 on the nebular hypothesis4 ,his results dispensed1 as he said to ,napoleon1 with the hypothesis of ,god1 and were duly denounced4 ,his theory involved a long physical process before the earth and solar system came to be formed2 but this was not fatal1 for a little ingenuity might preserve the credit of the first chapter of ,genesis4 ,geology was to prove a more formidable enemy to the ,biblical story of the ,creation and the ,deluge4 ,the theory of a ,french naturalist 7,cuvier7 that the earth had repeatedly experienced catastrophes1 each of which necessitated a new creative act1 helped for a time to save the belief in divine intervention1 and ,lyell1 in his ,principles of ,geology 7#ahcj71 while he undermined the assumption of catastrophes1 by showing that the earth's history could be explained by the ordinary processes which we still see in operation1 yet held fast to successive acts of creation4 ,it was not till #ahfc that he presented fully1 in his ,antiquity of ,man1 the #agi evidence which showed that the human race had inhabited the earth for a far longer period than could be reconciled with the record of ,scripture4 ,that record might be adapted to the results of science in regard not only to the earth itself but also to the plants and lower animals1 by explaining the word 8day0 in the ,jewish story of creation to signify some long period of time4 ,but this way out was impossible in the case of the creation of man1 for the sacred chronology is quite definite4 ,an ,english divine of the seventeenth century ingeniously calculated that man was created by the ,trinity on ,october #bc1 ,b4,c4 #djjd1 at #i o'clock in the morning1 and no reckoning of the ,bible dates could put the event much further back4 ,other evidence reinforced the conclusions from geology1 but geology alone was sufficient to damage irretrievably the historical truth of the ,jewish legend of ,creation4 ,the only means of rescuing it was to suppose that ,god had created misleading evidence for the express purpose of deceiving man4 ,geology shook the infallibility of the ,bible1 but left the creation of some prehistoric ,adam and ,eve a still admissible hypothesis4 ,here however zoology stepped in1 and pronounced upon the origin of man4 ,it was an old conjecture that the higher forms of life1 including #ahj man1 had developed out of lower forms1 and advanced thinkers had been reaching the conclusion that the universe1 as we find it1 is the result of a continuous process1 unbroken by supernatural interference1 and explicable by uniform natural laws4 ,but while the reign of law in the world of non-living matter seemed to be established1 the world of life could be considered a field in which the theory of divine intervention is perfectly valid1 so long as science failed to assign satisfactory causes for the origination of the various kinds of animals and plants4 ,the publication of ,darwin's ,origin of ,species in #ahei is1 therefore1 a landmark not only in science but in the war between science and theology4 ,when this book appeared1 ,bishop ,wilberforce truly said that 8the principle of natural selection is incompatible with the word of ,god10 and theologians in ,germany and ,france as well as in ,england cried aloud against the threatened dethronement of the ,deity4 ,the appearance of the ,descent of ,man 7#ahga71 in which the evidence for the pedigree of the human race from lower animals was marshalled with masterly force1 renewed the outcry4 ,the ,bible said that ,god created man in his own image1 ,darwin said that man descended from an ape4 ,the feelings of the orthodox world may be #aha expressed in the words of ,mr4 ,gladstone3 8,upon the grounds of what is called evolution ,god is relieved of the labour of creation1 and in the name of unchangeable laws is discharged from governing the world40 ,it was a discharge which1 as ,spencer observed1 had begun with ,newton's discovery of gravitation4 ,if ,darwin did not1 as is now recognized1 supply a complete explanation of the origin of species1 his researches shattered the supernatural theory and confirmed the view to which many able thinkers had been led that development is continuous in the living as in the non-living world4 ,another nail was driven into the coffin of ,creation and the ,fall of ,adam1 and the doctrine of redemption could only be rescued by making it independent of the ,jewish fable on which it was founded4 ,darwinism1 as it is called1 has had the larger effect of discrediting the theory of the adaptation of means to ends in nature by an external and infinitely powerful intelligence4 ,the inadequacy of the argument from design1 as a proof of ,god's existence1 had been shown by the logic of ,hume and ,kant2 but the observation of the life-processes of nature shows that the very analogy between nature and art1 on which the argument depends1 breaks down4 ,the impropriety of the analogy has been #ahb pointed out1 in a telling way1 by a ,german writer 7,lange74 ,if a man wants to shoot a hare which is in a certain field1 he does not procure thousands of guns1 surround the field1 and cause them all to be fired off2 or if he wants a house to live in1 he does not build a whole town and abandon to weather and decay all the houses but one4 ,if he did either of these things we should say he was mad or amazingly unintelligent2 his actions certainly would not be held to indicate a powerful mind1 expert in adapting means to ends4 ,but these are the sort of things that nature does4 ,her wastefulness in the propagation of life is reckless4 ,for the production of one life she sacrifices innumerable germs4 ,the 8end0 is achieved in one case out of thousands2 the rule is destruction and failure4 ,if intelligence had anything to do with this bungling process1 it would be an intelligence infinitely low4 ,and the finished product1 if regarded as a work of design1 points to incompetence in the designer4 ,take the human eye4 ,an illustrious man of science 7,helmholtz7 said1 8,if an optician sent it to me as an instrument1 ,i should send it back with reproaches for the carelessness of his work and demand the return of my money4 ,darwin showed how the phenomena might be explained as events not brought about #ahc intentionally1 but due to exceptional concurrences of circumstances4 ,the phenomena of nature are a system of things which co-exist and follow each other according to invariable laws4 ,this deadly proposition was asserted early in the nineteenth century to be an axiom of science4 ,it was formulated by ,mill 7in his ,system of ,logic1 #ahdc7 as the foundation on which scientific induction rests4 ,it means that at any moment the state of the whole universe is the effect of its state at the preceding moment2 the casual sequence between two successive states is not broken by any arbitrary interference suppressing or altering the relation between cause and effect4 ,some ancient ,greek philosophers were convinced of this principle2 the work done by modern science in every field seems to be a verification of it4 ,but it need not be stated in such an absolute form4 ,recently1 scientific men have been inclined to express the axiom with more reserve and less dogmatically4 ,they are prepared to recognize that it is simply a postulate without which the scientific comprehension of the universe would be impossible1 and they are inclined to state it not as a law of causation--for the idea of causation leads into metaphysics--but rather as uniformity of experience4 ,but they are not #ahd readier to admit exceptions to this uniformity than their predecessors were to admit exceptions to the law of causation4 ,the idea of development has been applied not only to nature1 but to the mind of man and to the history of civilization1 including thought and religion4 ,the first who attempted to apply this idea methodically to the whole universe was not a student of natural science1 but a metaphysician1 ,hegel4 ,his extremely difficult philosophy had such a wide influence on thought that a few words must be said about its tendency4 ,he conceived the whole of existence as what he called the ,absolute ,idea1 which is not in space or time and is compelled by the laws of its being to manifest itself in the process of the world1 first externalizing itself in nature1 and then becoming conscious of itself as spirit in individual minds4 ,his system is hence called ,absolute ,idealism4 ,the attraction which it exercised has probably been in great measure due to the fact that it was in harmony with nineteenth-century thought1 in so far as it conceived the process of the world1 both in nature and spirit1 as a necessary development from lower to higher stages4 ,in this respect indeed ,hegel's vision was limited4 ,he treats the process as if it were practically complete already1 and does not take into account #ahe the probability of further development in the future1 to which other thinkers of his own time were turning their attention4 ,but what concerns us here is that1 while ,hegel's system is 8idealistic10 finding the explanation of the universe in thought and not in matter1 it tended as powerfully as any materialistic system to subvert orthodox beliefs4 ,it is true that some have claimed it as supporting ,christianity4 ,a certain colour is lent to this by ,hegel's view that the ,christian creed1 as the highest religion1 contains doctrines which express imperfectly some of the ideas of the highest philosophy--his own2 along with the fact that he sometimes speaks of the ,absolute ,idea as if it were a person1 though personality would be a limitation inconsistent with his conception of it4 ,but it is sufficient to observe that1 whatever value be assigned to ,christianity1 he regarded it from the superior standpoint of a purely intellectual philosophy1 not as a special revelation of truth1 but as a certain approximation to the truth which philosophy alone can reach2 and it may be said with some confidence that any one who comes under ,hegel's spell feels that he is in possession of a theory of the universe which relieves him from the need or desire of any revealed religion4 ,his influence in ,germany1 ,russia1 and elsewhere has entirely made for highly unorthodox thought4 #ahf ,hegel was not aggressive1 he was superior4 ,his ,french contemporary1 ,comte1 who also thought out a comprehensive system1 aggressively and explicitly rejected theology as an obsolete way of explaining the universe4 ,he rejected metaphysics likewise1 and all that ,hegel stood for1 as equally useless1 on the ground that metaphysicians explain nothing1 but merely describe phenomena in abstract terms1 and that questions about the origin of the world and why it exists are quite beyond the reach of reason4 ,both theology and metaphysics are superseded by science--the investigation of causes and effects and coexistences2 and the future progress of society will be guided by the scientific view of the world which confines itself to the positive data of experience4 ,comte was convinced that religion is a social necessity1 and1 to supply the place of the theological religions which he pronounced to be doomed1 he invented a new religion--the religion of ,humanity4 ,it differs from the great religions of the world in having no supernatural or non-rational articles of belief1 and on that account he had few adherents4 ,but the 8,positive ,philosophy0 of ,comte has exercised great influence1 not least in ,england1 where its principles have been promulgated especially by ,mr4 ,frederic ,harrison1 who in the latter #ahg half of the nineteenth century has been one of the most indefatigable workers in the cause of reason against authority4 ,another comprehensive system was worked out by an ,englishman1 ,herbert ,spencer4 ,like ,comte's1 it was based on science1 and attempts to show how1 starting with a nebular universe1 the whole knowable world1 psychical and social as well as physical1 can be deduced4 ,his ,synthetic ,philosophy perhaps did more than anything else to make the idea of evolution familiar in ,england4 ,i must mention one other modern explanation of the world1 that of ,haeckel1 the zoologist1 professor at ,jena1 who may be called the prophet of evolution4 ,his ,creation of ,man 7#ahfh7 covered the same ground as ,darwin's ,descent1 had an enormous circulation1 and was translated1 ,i believe1 into fourteen languages4 ,his ,world-riddles 7#ahii7 enjoys the same popularity4 ,he has taught1 like ,spencer1 that the principle of evolution applies not only to the history of nature1 but also to human civilization and human thought4 ,he differs from ,spencer and ,comte in not assuming any unknowable reality behind natural phenomena4 ,his adversaries commonly stigmatize his theory as materialism1 but this is a mistake4 ,like ,spinoza he recognizes matter and mind1 body and thought1 as #ahh two inseparable sides of ultimate reality1 which he calls ,god2 in fact1 he identifies his philosophy with that of ,spinoza4 ,and he logically proceeds to conceive material atoms as thinking4 ,his idea of the physical world is based on the old mechanical conception of matter1 which in recent years has been discredited4 ,but ,haeckel's ,monism1 #a as he called his doctrine1 has lately been reshaped and in its new form promises to exercise wide influence on thoughtful people in ,germany4 ,i will return later to this ,monistic movement4 ,it had been a fundamental principle of ,comte that human actions and human history are as strictly subject as nature is1 to the law of causation4 ,two psychological works appeared in ,england in #ahee 7,bain's ,senses and ,intellect and ,spencer's ,principles of ,psychology71 which taught that our volitions are completely determined1 being the inevitable consequences of chains of causes and effects4 ,but a far deeper impression was produced two years later by the first volume of ,buckle's ,history of ,civilization in ,england 7a work of much less permanent value71 which attempted to apply this principle to history4 ,men act in consequence of motives2 their motives are the results of preceding facts2 so that 8if we were acquainted with the whole of the antecedents #ahi and with all the laws of their movements1 we could with unerring certainty predict the whole of their immediate results40 ,thus history is an unbroken chain of causes and effects4 ,chance is excluded2 it is a mere name for the defects of our knowledge4 ,mysterious and providential interference is excluded4 ,buckle maintained ,god's existence1 but eliminated him from history2 and his book dealt a resounding blow at the theory that human actions are not submitted to the law of universal causation4 ,the science of anthropology has in recent years aroused wide interest4 ,inquiries into the condition of early man have shown 7independently of ,darwinism7 that there is nothing to be said for the view that he fell from a higher to a lower state2 the evidence points to a slow rise from mere animality4 ,the origin of religious beliefs has been investigated1 with results disquieting for orthodoxy4 ,the researches of students of anthropology and comparative religion--such as ,tylor1 ,robertson ,smith1 and ,frazer--have gone to show that mysterious ideas and dogma and rites which were held to be peculiar to the ,christian revelation are derived from the crude ideas of primitive religions4 ,that the mystery of the ,eucharist comes from the common savage rite of eating a dead god1 #aij that the death and resurrection of a god in human form1 which form the central fact of ,christianity1 and the miraculous birth of a ,saviour are features which it has in common with pagan religions--such conclusions are supremely unedifying4 ,it may be said that in themselves they are not fatal to the claims of the current theology4 ,it may be held1 for instance1 that1 as part of ,christian revelation1 such ideas acquired a new significance and that ,god wisely availed himself of familiar beliefs--which1 though false and leading to cruel practices1 he himself had inspired and permitted--in order to construct a scheme of redemption which should appeal to the prejudices of man4 ,some minds may find satisfaction in this sort of explanation1 but it may be suspected that most of the few who study modern researches into the origin of religious beliefs will feel the lines which were supposed to mark off the ,christian from all other faiths dissolving before their eyes4 ,the general result of the advance of science1 including anthropology1 has been to create a coherent view of the world1 in which the ,christian scheme1 based on the notions of an unscientific age and on the arrogant assumption that the universe was made for man1 has no suitable or reasonable place4 ,if ,paine felt this a hundred years ago1 it is far #aia more apparent now4 ,all minds however are not equally impressed with this incongruity4 ,there are many who will admit the proofs furnished by science that the ,biblical record as to the antiquity of man is false1 but are not affected by the incongruity between the scientific and theological conceptions of the world4 ,for such minds science has only succeeded in carrying some entrenchments1 which may be abandoned without much harm4 ,it has made the old orthodox view of the infallibility of the ,bible untenable1 and upset the doctrine of the ,creation and ,fall4 ,but it would still be possible for ,christianity to maintain the supernatural claim1 by modifying its theory of the authority of the ,bible and revising its theory of redemption1 if the evidence of natural science were the only group of facts with which it collided4 ,it might be argued that the law of universal causation is a hypothesis inferred from experience1 but that experience includes the testimonies of history and must therefore take account of the clear evidence of miraculous occurrences in the ,new ,testament 7evidence which is valid1 even if that book was not inspired74 ,thus1 a stand could be taken against the generalization of science on the firm ground of historical fact4 ,that solid ground1 however1 has given #aib way1 undermined by historical criticism1 which has been more deadly than the common-sense criticism of the eighteenth century4 ,the methodical examination of the records contained in the ,bible1 dealing with them as if they were purely human documents1 is the work of the nineteenth century4 ,something1 indeed1 had already been done4 ,spinoza1 for instance 7above1 p4 #ach71 and ,simon1 a ,frenchman whose books were burnt1 were pioneers2 and the modern criticism of the ,old ,testament was begun by ,astruc 7professor of medicine at ,paris71 who discovered an important clue for distinguishing different documents used by the compiler of the ,book of ,genesis 7#agec74 ,his ,german contemporary1 ,reimarus1 a student of the ,new ,testament1 anticipated the modern conclusion that ,jesus had no intention of founding a new religion1 and saw that the ,gospel of ,st4 ,john presents a different figure from the ,jesus of the other evangelists4 ,but in the nineteenth century the methods of criticism1 applied by ,german scholars to ,homer and to the records of early ,roman history1 were extended to the investigation of the ,bible4 ,the work has been done principally in ,germany4 ,the old tradition that the ,pentateuch was written by ,moses has been completely discredited4 ,it is now #aic agreed unanimously by all who have studied the facts that the ,pentateuch was put together from a number of different documents of different ages1 the earliest dating from the ninth1 the last from the fifth1 century ,b4,c42 and there are later minor additions4 ,an important1 though undesigned1 contribution was made to this exposure by an ,englishman1 ,colenso1 ,bishop of ,natal4 ,it had been held that the oldest of the documents which had been distinguished was a narrative which begins in ,genesis1 ,chapter ,i1 but there was the difficulty that this narrative seemed to be closely associated with the legislation of ,leviticus which could be proved to belong to the fifth century4 ,in #ahfb ,colenso published the first part of his ,pentateuch and the ,book of ,joshua ,critically ,examined4 ,his doubts of the truth of ,old ,testament history had been awakened by a converted ,zulu who asked the intelligent question whether he could really believe in the story of the ,flood1 8that all the beasts and birds and creeping things upon the earth1 large and small1 from hot countries and cold1 came thus by pairs and entered into the ark with ,noah8 ,and did ,noah gather food for them all1 for the beasts and birds of prey as well as the rest80 ,the ,bishop then proceeded to test the accuracy of the inspired books by examining #aid the numerical statements which they contain4 ,the results were fatal to them as historical records4 ,quite apart from miracles 7the possibility of which he did not question71 he showed that the whole story of the sojourn of the ,israelites in ,egypt and the wilderness was full of absurdities and impossibilities4 ,colenso's book raised a storm of indignation in ,england--he was known as 8the wicked bishop02 but on the ,continent its reception was very different4 ,the portions of the ,pentateuch and ,joshua1 which he proved to be unhistorical1 belonged precisely to the narrative which had caused perplexity2 and critics were led by his results to conclude that1 like the ,levitical laws with which it was connected1 it was as late as the fifth century4 ,one of the most striking results of the researches on the ,old ,testament has been that the ,jews themselves handled their traditions freely4 ,each of the successive documents1 which were afterwards woven together1 was written by men who adopted a perfectly free attitude towards the older traditions1 and having no suspicion that they were of divine origin did not bow down before their authority4 ,it was reserved for the ,christians to invest with infallible authority the whole indiscriminate lump of these ,jewish documents1 inconsistent not #aie only in their tendencies 7since they reflect the spirit of different ages71 but also in some respects in substance4 ,the examination of most of the other ,old ,testament books has led to conclusions likewise adverse to the orthodox view of their origin and character4 ,new knowledge on many points has been derived from the ,babylonian literature which has been recovered during the last half century4 ,one of the earliest 7#ahgb7 and most sensational discoveries was that the ,jews got their story of the ,flood from ,babylonian mythology4 ,modern criticism of the ,new ,testament began with the stimulating works of ,baur and of ,strauss1 whose ,life of ,jesus 7#ahce71 in which the supernatural was entirely rejected1 had an immense success and caused furious controversy4 ,both these rationalists were influenced by ,hegel4 ,at the same time a classical scholar1 ,lachmann1 laid the foundations of the criticism of the ,greek text of the ,new ,testament1 by issuing the first scientific edition4 ,since then seventy years of work have led to some certain results which are generally accepted4 ,in the first place1 no intelligent person who has studied modern criticism holds the old view that each of the four biographies of ,jesus is an independent work and an independent #aif testimony to the facts which are related4 ,it is acknowledged that those portions which are common to more than one and are written in identical language have the same origin and represent only one testimony4 ,in the second place1 it is allowed that the first ,gospel is not the oldest and that the apostle ,matthew was not its author4 ,there is also a pretty general agreement that ,mark's book is the oldest4 ,the authorship of the fourth ,gospel1 which like the first was supposed to have been written by an eye-witness1 is still contested1 but even those who adhere to the tradition admit that it represents a theory about ,jesus which is widely different from the view of the three other biographers4 ,the result is that it can no longer be said that for the life of ,jesus there is the evidence of eye-witnesses4 ,the oldest account 7,mark7 was composed at the earliest some thirty years after the ,crucifixion4 ,if such evidence is considered good enough to establish the supernatural events described in that document1 there are few alleged supernatural occurrences which we shall not be equally entitled to believe4 ,as a matter of fact1 an interval of thirty years makes little difference1 for we know that legends require little time to grow4 ,in the ,east1 you will hear of miracles which happened the day before #aig yesterday4 ,the birth of religions is always enveloped in legend1 and the miraculous thing would be1 as ,m4 ,salomon ,reinach has observed1 if the story of the birth of ,christianity were pure history4 ,another disturbing result of unprejudiced examination of the first three ,gospels is that1 if you take the recorded words of ,jesus to be genuine tradition1 he had no idea of founding a new religion4 ,and he was fully persuaded that the end of the world was at hand4 ,at present1 the chief problem of advanced criticism seems to be whether his entire teaching was not determined by this delusive conviction4 ,it may be said that the advance of knowledge has thrown no light on one of the most important beliefs that we are asked to accept on authority1 the doctrine of immortality4 ,physiology and psychology have indeed emphasized the difficulties of conceiving a thinking mind without a nervous system4 ,some are sanguine enough to think that1 by scientific examination of psychical phenomena1 we may possibly come to know whether the 8spirits0 of dead people exist4 ,if the existence of such a world of spirits were ever established1 it would possibly be the greatest blow ever sustained by ,christianity4 ,for the great appeal of this and of some other religions #aih lies in the promise of a future life of which otherwise we should have no knowledge4 ,if existence after death were proved and became a scientific fact like the law of gravitation1 a revealed religion might lose its power4 ,for the whole point of a revealed religion is that it is not based on scientific facts4 ,so far as ,i know1 those who are convinced1 by spiritualistic experiments1 that they have actual converse with spirits of the dead1 and for whom this converse1 however delusive the evidence may be1 is a fact proved by experience1 cease to feel any interest in religion4 ,they possess knowledge and can dispense with faith4 ,the havoc which science and historical criticism have wrought among orthodox beliefs during the last hundred years was not tamely submitted to1 and controversy was not the only weapon employed4 ,strauss was deprived of his professorship at ,tbingen1 and his career was ruined4 ,renan1 whose sensational ,life of ,jesus also rejected the supernatural1 lost his chair in the ,collge de ,france4 ,bchner was driven from ,tbingen 7#ahee7 for his book on ,force and ,matter1 which1 appealing to the general public1 set forth the futility of supernatural explanations of the universe4 ,an attempt was made to chase ,haeckel from ,jena4 ,in recent years1 #aii a ,french ,catholic1 the ,abb ,loisy1 has made notable contributions to the study of the ,new ,testament and he was rewarded by major excommunication in #aijg4 ,loisy is the most prominent figure in a growing movement within the ,catholic ,church known as ,modernism--a movement which some think is the gravest crisis in the history of the ,church since the thirteenth century4 ,the ,modernists do not form an organized party2 they have no programme4 ,they are devoted to the ,church1 to its traditions and associations1 but they look on ,christianity as a religion which has developed1 and whose vitality depends upon its continuing to develop4 ,they are bent on reinterpreting the dogmas in the light of modern science and criticism4 ,the idea of development had already been applied by ,cardinal ,newman to ,catholic theology4 ,he taught that it was a natural1 and therefore legitimate1 development of the primitive creed4 ,but he did not draw the conclusion which the ,modernists draw that if ,catholicism is not to lose its power of growth and die1 it must assimilate some of the results of modern thought4 ,this is what they are attempting to do for it4 ,pope ,pius ,x has made every effort to suppress the ,modernists4 ,in #aijg 7,july7 he #bjj issued a decree denouncing various results of modern ,biblical criticism which are defended in ,loisy's works4 ,the two fundamental propositions that 8the organic constitution of the ,church is not immutable1 but that ,christian society is subject1 like every human society1 to a perpetual evolution10 and that 8the dogmas which the ,church regards as revealed are not fallen from heaven but are an interpretation of religious facts at which the human mind laboriously arrived0--both of which might be deduced from ,newman's writings--are condemned4 ,three months later the ,pope issued a long ,encyclical letter1 containing an elaborate study of ,modernist opinions1 and ordaining various measures for stamping out the evil4 ,no ,modernist would admit that this document represents his views fairly4 ,yet some of the remarks seem very much to the point4 ,take one of their books3 8one page might be signed by a ,catholic2 turn over and you think you are reading the work of a rationalist4 ,in writing history1 they make no mention of ,christ's divinity2 in the pulpit1 they proclaim it loudly40 ,a plain man may be puzzled by these attempts to retain the letter of old dogmas emptied of their old meaning1 and may think it natural enough that the head of the ,catholic #bja ,church should take a clear and definite stand against the new learning which1 seems fatal to its fundamental doctrines4 ,for many years past1 liberal divines in the ,protestant ,churches have been doing what the ,modernists are doing4 ,the phrase 8,divinity of ,christ0 is used1 but is interpreted so as not to imply a miraculous birth4 ,the ,resurrection is preached1 but is interpreted so as not to imply a miraculous bodily resurrection4 ,the ,bible is said to be an inspired book1 but inspiration is used in a vague sense1 much as when one says that ,plato was inspired2 and the vagueness of this new idea of inspiration is even put forward as a merit4 ,between the extreme views which discard the miraculous altogether1 and the old orthodoxy1 there are many gradations of belief4 ,in the ,church of ,england to-day it would be difficult to say what is the minimum belief required either from its members or from its clergy4 ,probably every leading ecclesiastic would give a different answer4 ,the rise of rationalism within the ,english ,church is interesting and illustrates the relations between ,church and ,state4 ,the pietistic movement known as ,evangelicalism1 which ,wilberforce's ,practical ,view of ,christianity 7#agig7 did much to make popular1 introduced the spirit of ,methodism #bjb within the ,anglican ,church1 and soon put an end to the delightful type of eighteenth-century divine1 who1 as ,gibbon says1 8subscribed with a sigh or a smile0 the articles of faith4 ,the rigorous taboo of the ,sabbath was revived1 the theatre was denounced1 the corruption of human nature became the dominant theme1 and the ,bible more a fetish than ever4 ,the success of this religious 8reaction10 as it is called1 was aided1 though not caused1 by the common belief that the ,french ,revolution had been mainly due to infidelity2 the ,revolution was taken for an object lesson showing the value of religion for keeping the people in order4 ,there was also a religious 8reaction0 in ,france itself4 ,but in both cases this means not that free thought was less prevalent1 but that the beliefs of the majority were more aggressive and had powerful spokesmen1 while the eighteenth-century form of rationalism fell out of fashion4 ,a new form of rationalism1 which sought to interpret orthodoxy in such a liberal way as to reconcile it with philosophy1 was represented by ,coleridge1 who was influenced by ,german philosophers4 ,coleridge was a supporter of the ,church1 and he contributed to the foundation of a school of liberal theology which was to make itself felt after the middle of the century4 #bjc ,newman1 the most eminent of the new ,high ,church party1 said that he indulged in a liberty of speculation which no ,christian could tolerate4 ,the ,high ,church movement which marked the second quarter of the century was as hostile as ,evangelicalism to the freedom of religious thought4 ,the change came after the middle of the century1 when the effects of the philosophies of ,hegel and ,comte1 and of foreign ,biblical criticism1 began to make themselves felt within the ,english ,church4 ,two remarkable freethinking books appeared at this period which were widely read1 ,f4 ,w4 ,newman's ,phases of ,faith and ,w4 ,r4 ,greg's ,creed of ,christendom 7both in #ahej74 ,newman 7brother of ,cardinal ,newman7 entirely broke with ,christianity1 and in his book he describes the mental process by which he came to abandon the beliefs he had once held4 ,perhaps the most interesting point he makes is the deficiency of the ,new ,testament teaching as a system of morals4 ,greg was a ,unitarian4 ,he rejected dogma and inspiration1 but he regarded himself as a ,christian4 ,sir ,j4 ,f4 ,stephen wittily described his position as that of a disciple 8who had heard the ,sermon on the ,mount1 whose attention had not been called to the ,miracles1 and who died before the ,resurrection40 #bjd ,there were a few ,english clergymen 7chiefly ,oxford men7 who were interested in ,german criticism and leaned to broad views1 which to the ,evangelicals and ,high ,churchmen seemed indistinguishable from infidelity4 ,we may call them the ,broad ,church--though the name did not come in till later4 ,in #ahee ,jowett 7afterwards ,master of ,balliol7 published an edition of some of ,st4 ,paul's ,epistles1 in which he showed the cloven hoof4 ,it contained an annihilating criticism of the doctrine of the ,atonement1 an explicit rejection of original sin1 and a rationalistic discussion of the question of ,god's existence4 ,but this and some other unorthodox works of liberal theologians attracted little public attention1 though their authors had to endure petty persecution4 ,five years later1 ,jowett and some other members of the small liberal group decided to defy the 8abominable system of terrorism which prevents the statement of the plainest fact10 and issued a volume of ,essays and ,reviews 7#ahfj7 by seven writers of whom six were clergymen4 ,the views advocated in these essays seem mild enough to-day1 and many of them would be accepted by most well-educated clergymen1 but at the time they produced a very painful impression4 ,the authors were called the 8,seven against ,christ40 ,it was #bje laid down that the ,bible is to be interpreted like any other book4 8,it is not a useful lesson for the young student to apply to ,scripture principles which he would hesitate to apply to other books2 to make formal reconcilements of discrepancies which he would not think of reconciling in ordinary history2 to divide simple words into double meanings2 to adopt the fancies or conjectures of ,fathers and ,commentators as real knowledge40 ,it is suggested that the ,hebrew prophecies do not contain the element of prediction4 ,contradictory accounts1 or accounts which can only be reconciled by conjecture1 cannot possibly have been dictated by ,god4 ,the discrepancies between the genealogies of ,jesus in ,matthew and ,luke1 or between the accounts of the ,resurrection1 can be attributed 8neither to any defect in our capacities nor to any reasonable presumption of a hidden wise design1 nor to any partial spiritual endowments in the narrators40 ,the orthodox arguments which lay stress on the assertion of witnesses as the supreme evidence of fact1 in support of miraculous occurrences1 are set aside on the ground that testimony is a blind guide and can avail nothing against reason and the strong grounds we have for believing in permanent order4 ,it is argued that1 under the ,thirty-nine #bjf ,articles1 it is permissible to accept as 8parable or poetry or legend0 such stories as that of an ass speaking with a man's voice1 of waters standing in a solid heap1 of witches and a variety of apparitions1 and to judge for ourselves of such questions as the personality of ,satan or the primeval institution of the ,sabbath4 ,the whole spirit of this volume is perhaps expressed in the observation that if any one perceives 8to how great an extent the origin itself of ,christianity rests upon probable evidence1 his principle will relieve him from many difficulties which might otherwise be very disturbing4 ,for relations which may repose on doubtful grounds as matters of history1 and1 as history1 be incapable of being ascertained or verified1 may yet be equally suggestive of true ideas with facts absolutely certain0--that is1 they may have a spiritual significance although they are historically false4 ,the most daring ,essay was the ,rev4 ,baden ,powell's ,study of the ,evidences of ,christianity4 ,he was a believer in evolution1 who accepted ,darwinism1 and considered miracles impossible4 ,the volume was denounced by the ,bishops1 and in #ahfb two of the contributors1 who were beneficed clergymen and thus open to a legal attack1 were prosecuted and tried in the ,ecclesiastical ,court4 ,condemned on #bjg certain points1 acquitted on others1 they were sentenced to be suspended for a year1 and they appealed to the ,privy ,council4 ,lord ,westbury 7,lord ,chancellor7 pronounced the judgment of the ,judicial ,committee of the ,council1 which reversed the decision of the ,ecclesiastical ,court4 ,the ,committee held1 among other things1 that it is not essential for a clergyman to believe in eternal punishment4 ,this prompted the following epitaph on ,lord ,westbury3 8,towards the close of his earthly career he dismissed ,hell with costs and took away from ,orthodox members of the ,church of ,england their last hope of everlasting damnation40 ,this was a great triumph for the ,broad ,church party1 and it is an interesting event in the history of the ,english ,state-,church4 ,laymen decided 7overruling the opinion of the ,archbishops of ,canterbury and ,york7 what theological doctrines are and are not binding on a clergyman1 and granted within the ,church a liberty of opinion which the majority of the ,church's representatives regarded as pernicious4 ,this liberty was formally established in #ahfe by an ,act of ,parliament1 which altered the form in which clergymen were required to subscribe the ,thirty-nine ,articles4 ,the episode of ,essays and ,reviews is a landmark in the history of religious thought in ,england4 #bjh ,the liberal views of the ,broad ,churchmen and their attitude to the ,bible gradually produced some effect upon those who differed most from them2 and nowadays there is probably no one who would not admit1 at least1 that such a passage as ,genesis1 ,chapter ,,xix1 might have been composed without the direct inspiration of the ,deity4 ,during the next few years orthodox public opinion was shocked or disturbed by the appearance of several remarkable books which criticized1 ignored1 or defied authority--,lyell's ,antiquity of ,man1 ,seeley's ,ecce ,homo 7which the pious ,lord ,shaftesbury said was 8vomited from the jaws of hell071 ,lecky's ,history of ,rationalism4 ,and a new poet of liberty arose who did not fear to sound the loudest notes of defiance against all that authority held sacred4 ,all the great poets of the nineteenth century were more or less unorthodox2 ,wordsworth in the years of his highest inspiration was a pantheist2 and the greatest of all1 ,shelley1 was a declared atheist4 ,in fearless utterance1 in unfaltering zeal against the tyranny of ,gods and ,governments1 ,swinburne was like ,shelley4 ,his drama ,atalanta in ,calydon 7#ahfe71 even though a poet is strictly not answerable for what the persons in his drama say1 yet with its denunciation of 8the supreme evil1 ,god10 heralded the coming #bji of a new champion who would defy the fortresses of authority4 ,and in the following year his ,poems and ,ballads expressed the spirit of a pagan who flouted all the prejudices and sanctities of the ,christian world4 ,but the most intense and exciting period of literary warfare against orthodoxy in ,england began about #ahfi1 and lasted for about a dozen years1 during which enemies of dogma1 of all complexions1 were less reticent and more aggressive than at any other time in the century4 ,lord ,morley has observed that 8the force of speculative literature always hangs on practical opportuneness10 and this remark is illustrated by the rationalistic literature of the seventies4 ,it was a time of hope and fear1 of progress and danger4 ,secularists and rationalists were encouraged by the ,disestablishment of the ,church in ,ireland 7#ahfi71 by the ,act which allowed atheists to give evidence in a court of justice 7#ahfi71 by the abolition of religious tests at all the universities 7a measure frequently attempted in vain7 in #ahga4 ,on the other hand1 the ,education ,act of #ahgj1 progressive though it was1 disappointed the advocates of secular education1 and was an unwelcome sign of the strength of ecclesiastical influence4 ,then there was the general alarm felt in ,europe by all outside the ,roman ,church1 #baj and by some within it1 at the decree of the infallibility of the ,pope 7by the ,vatican ,council #ahfi-gj71 and an ,englishman 7,cardinal ,manning7 was one of the most active spirits in bringing about this decree4 ,it would perhaps have caused less alarm if the ,pope's denunciation of modern errors had not been fresh in men's memories4 ,at the end of #ahfd he startled the world by issuing a ,syllabus 8embracing the principal errors of our age40 ,among these were the propositions1 that every man is free to adopt and profess the religion he considers true1 according to the light of reason2 that the ,church has no right to employ force2 that metaphysics can and ought to be pursued without reference to divine and ecclesiastical authority2 that ,catholic states are right to allow foreign immigrants to exercise their own religion in public2 that the ,pope ought to make terms with progress1 liberalism1 and modern civilization4 ,the document was taken as a declaration of war against enlightenment1 and the ,vatican ,council as the first strategic move of the hosts of darkness4 ,it seemed that the powers of obscurantism were lifting up their heads with a new menace1 and there was an instinctive feeling that all the forces of reason should be brought into the field4 ,the history of the last forty years shows that the theory of #baa ,infallibility1 since it has become a dogma1 is not more harmful than it was before4 ,but the efforts of the ,catholic ,church in the years following the ,council to overthrow the ,french ,republic and to rupture the new ,german ,empire were sufficiently disquieting4 ,against this was to be set the destruction of the temporal power of the ,popes and the complete freedom of ,italy4 ,this event was the sunrise of ,swinburne's ,songs before ,sunrise 7which appeared in #ahga71 a seedplot of atheism and revolution1 sown with implacable hatred of creeds and tyrants4 ,the most wonderful poem in the volume1 the ,hymn of ,man1 was written while the ,vatican ,council was sitting4 ,it is a song of triumph over the ,god of the priests1 stricken by the doom of the ,pope's temporal power4 ,the concluding verses will show the spirit4 8,by thy name that in hellfire was written1 and burned at the point of thy sword1 ,thou art smitten1 thou ,god1 thou art smitten2 thy death is upon thee1 ,o ,lord4 ,and the lovesong of earth as thou diest resounds through the wind of her wings-- ,glory to ,man in the highest6 for ,man is the master of things40 #bab ,the fact that such a volume could appear with impunity vividly illustrates the ,english policy of enforcing the laws for blasphemy only in the case of publications addressed to the masses4 ,political circumstances thus invited and stimulated rationalists to come forward boldly1 but we must not leave out of account the influence of the ,broad ,church movement and of ,darwinism4 ,the ,descent of ,man appeared precisely in #ahga4 ,a new1 undogmatic ,christianity was being preached in pulpits4 ,mr4 ,leslie ,stephen remarked 7#ahgc7 that 8it may be said1 with little exaggeration1 that there is not only no article in the creeds which may not be contradicted with impunity1 but that there is none which may not be contradicted in a sermon calculated to win the reputation of orthodoxy and be regarded as a judicious bid for a bishopric4 ,the popular state of mind seems to be typified in the well- known anecdote of the cautious churchwarden1 who1 whilst commending the general tendency of his incumbent's sermon1 felt bound to hazard a protest upon one point4 #8,you see1 sir1' as he apologetically explained1 #8,i think there be a ,god4' ,he thought it an error of taste or perhaps of judgment1 to hint a doubt as to the first article of the creed40 ,the influence exerted among the cultivated #bac classes by the aesthetic movement 7,ruskin1 ,morris1 the ,pre- ,raphaelite painters2 then ,pater's ,lectures on the ,renaissance1 #ahgc7 was also a sign of the times4 ,for the attitude of these critics1 artists1 and poets was essentially pagan4 ,the saving truths of theology were for them as if they did not exist4 ,the ideal of happiness was found in a region in which heaven was ignored4 ,the time then seemed opportune for speaking out4 ,of the unorthodox books and essays1 #b which influenced the young and alarmed believers1 in these exciting years1 most were the works of men who may be most fairly described by the comprehensive term agnostics--a name which had been recently invented by ,professor ,huxley4 ,the agnostic holds that there are limits to human reason1 and that theology lies outside those limits4 ,within those limits lies the world with which science 7including psychology7 deals4 ,science deals entirely with phenomena1 and has nothing to say to the nature of the ultimate reality which may lie behind phenomena4 ,there are four possible #bad attitudes to this ultimate reality4 ,there is the attitude of the metaphysician and theologian1 who are convinced not only that it exists but that it can be at least partly known4 ,there is the attitude of the man who denies that it exists2 but he must be also a metaphysician1 for its existence can only be disproved by metaphysical arguments4 ,then there are those who assert that it exists but deny that we can know anything about it4 ,and finally there are those who say that we cannot know whether it exists or not4 ,these last are 8agnostics0 in the strict sense of the term1 men who profess not to know4 ,the third class go beyond phenomena in so far as they assert that there is an ultimate though unknowable reality beneath phenomena4 ,but agnostic is commonly used in a wide sense so as to include the third as well as the fourth class--those who assume an unknowable1 as well as those who do not know whether there is an unknowable or not4 ,comte and ,spencer1 for instance1 who believed in an unknowable1 are counted as agnostics4 ,the difference between an agnostic and an atheist is that the atheist positively denies the existence of a personal ,god1 the agnostic does not believe in it4 ,the writer of this period who held agnosticism #bae in its purest form1 and who turned the dry light of reason on to theological opinions with the most merciless logic1 was ,mr4 ,leslie ,stephen4 ,his best-known essay1 8,an ,agnostic's ,apology0 7,fortnightly ,review1 #ahgf71 raises the question1 have the dogmas of orthodox theologians any meaning8 ,do they offer1 for this is what we want1 an intelligible reconciliation of the discords in the universe8 ,it is shown in detail that the various theological explanations of the dealings of ,god with man1 when logically pressed1 issue in a confession of ignorance4 ,and what is this but agnosticism8 ,you may call your doubt a mystery1 but mystery is only the theological phrase for agnosticism4 8,why1 when no honest man will deny in private that every ultimate problem is wrapped in the profoundest mystery1 do honest men proclaim in pulpits that unhesitating certainty is the duty of the most foolish and ignorant8 ,we are a company of ignorant beings1 dimly discerning light enough for our daily needs1 but hopelessly differing whenever we attempt to describe the ultimate origin or end of our paths2 and yet1 when one of us ventures to declare that we don't know the map of the ,universe as well as the map of our infinitesimal parish1 he is hooted1 reviled1 #baf and perhaps told that he will be damned to all eternity for his faithlessness40 ,the characteristic of ,leslie ,stephen's essays is that they are less directed to showing that orthodox theology is untrue as that there is no reality about it1 and that its solutions of difficulties are sham solutions4 ,if it solved any part of the mystery1 it would be welcome1 but it does not1 it only adds new difficulties4 ,it is 8a mere edifice of moonshine40 ,the writer makes no attempt to prove by logic that ultimate reality lies outside the limits of human reason4 ,he bases this conclusion on the fact that all philosophers hopelessly contradict one another2 if the subject-matter of philosophy were1 like physical science1 within the reach of the intelligence1 some agreement must have been reached4 ,the ,broad ,church movement1 the attempts to liberalize ,christianity1 to pour its old wine into new bottles1 to make it unsectarian and undogmatic1 to find compromises between theology and science1 found no favour in ,leslie ,stephen's eyes1 and he criticized all this with a certain contempt4 ,there was a controversy about the efficacy of prayer4 ,is it reasonable1 for instance1 to pray for rain8 ,here science and theology were at issue on a practical #bag point which comes within the domain of science4 ,some theologians adopted the compromise that to pray against an eclipse would be foolish1 but to pray for rain might be sensible4 8,one phenomenon10 ,stephen wrote1 8is just as much the result of fixed causes as the other2 but it is easier for the imagination to suppose the interference of a divine agent to be hidden away somewhere amidst the infinitely complex play of forces1 which elude our calculations in meteorological phenomena1 than to believe in it where the forces are simple enough to admit of prediction4 ,the distinction is of course invalid in a scientific sense4 ,almighty power can interfere as easily with the events which are1 as with those which are not1 in the ,nautical ,almanac4 ,one cannot suppose that ,god retreats as science advances1 and that he spoke in thunder and lightning till ,franklin unravelled the laws of their phenomena40 ,again1 when a controversy about hell engaged public attention1 and some otherwise orthodox theologians bethought themselves that eternal punishment was a horrible doctrine and then found that the evidence for it was not quite conclusive and were bold enough to say so1 ,leslie ,stephen stepped in to point out that1 if so1 historical #bah ,christianity deserves all that its most virulent enemies have said about it in this respect4 ,when the ,christian creed really ruled men's consciences1 nobody could utter a word against the truth of the dogma of hell4 ,if that dogma had not an intimate organic connection with the creed1 if it had been a mere unimportant accident1 it could not have been so vigorous and persistent wherever ,christianity was strongest4 ,the attempt to eliminate it or soften it down is a sign of decline4 8,now1 at last1 your creed is decaying4 ,people have discovered that you know nothing about it2 that heaven and hell belong to dreamland2 that the impertinent young curate who tells me that ,i shall be burnt everlastingly for not sharing his superstition is just as ignorant as ,i am myself1 and that ,i know as much as my dog4 ,and then you calmly say again1 #8,it is all a mistake4 ,only believe in a something --and we will make it as easy for you as possible4 ,hell shall have no more than a fine equable temperature1 really good for the constitution2 there shall be nobody in it except ,judas ,iscariot and one or two others2 and even the poor ,devil shall have a chance if he will resolve to mend his ways4' 0 ,mr4 ,matthew ,arnold may1 ,i suppose1 be numbered among the agnostics1 but he was #bai of a very different type4 ,he introduced a new kind of criticism of the ,bible--literary criticism4 ,deeply concerned for morality and religion1 a supporter of the ,established ,church1 he took the ,bible under his special protection1 and in three works1 ,st4 ,paul and ,protestantism1 #ahgj1 ,literature and ,dogma1 #ahgc1 and ,god and the ,bible1 #ahge1 he endeavoured to rescue that book from its orthodox exponents1 whom he regarded as the corrupters of ,christianity4 ,it would be just1 he says1 8but hardly perhaps ,christian10 to fling back the word infidel at the orthodox theologians for their bad literary and scientific criticisms of the ,bible and to speak of 8the torrent of infidelity which pours every ,sunday from our pulpits60 ,the corruption of ,christianity has been due to theology 8with its insane licence of affirmation about ,god1 its insane licence of affirmation about immortality02 to the hypothesis of 8a magnified and non-natural man at the head of mankind's and the world's affairs02 and the fancy account of ,god 8made up by putting scattered expressions of the ,bible together and taking them literally40 ,he chastises with urbane persiflage the knowledge which the orthodox think they possess about the proceedings and plans of ,god4 8,to think they know what passed in the ,council of the #bbj ,trinity is not hard to them2 they could easily think they even knew what were the hangings of the ,trinity's council-chamber40 ,yet 8the very expression1 the ,trinity1 jars with the whole idea and character of ,bible-religion2 but1 lest the ,socinian should be unduly elated at hearing this1 let us hasten to add that so too1 and just as much1 does the expression1 a great ,personal ,first ,cause40 ,he uses ,god as the least inadequate name for that universal order which the intellect feels after as a law1 and the heart feels after as a benefit2 and defines it as 8the stream of tendency by which all things strive to fulfil the law of their being40 ,he defined it further as a ,power that makes for righteousness1 and thus went considerably beyond the agnostic position4 ,he was impatient of the minute criticism which analyzes the ,biblical documents and discovers inconsistencies and absurdities1 and he did not appreciate the importance of the comparative study of religions4 ,but when we read of a dignitary in a recent ,church congress laying down that the narratives in the books of ,jonah and ,daniel must be accepted because ,jesus quoted them1 we may wish that ,arnold were here to reproach the orthodox for 8want of intellectual seriousness40 ,these years also saw the appearance of #bba ,mr4 ,john ,morley's sympathetic studies of the ,french freethinkers of the eighteenth century1 ,voltaire 7#ahgb71 ,rousseau 7#ahgc71 and ,diderot 7#ahgh74 ,he edited the ,fortnightly ,review1 and for some years this journal was distinguished by brilliant criticisms on the popular religion1 contributed by able men writing from many points of view4 ,a part of the book which he afterwards published under the title ,compromise appeared in the ,fortnightly in #ahgd4 ,in ,compromise1 8the whole system of objective propositions which make up the popular belief of the day0 is condemned as mischievous1 and it is urged that those who disbelieve should speak out plainly4 ,speaking out is an intellectual duty4 ,englishmen have a strong sense of political responsibility1 and a correspondingly weak sense of intellectual responsibility4 ,even minds that are not commonplace are affected for the worse by the political spirit which 8is the great force in throwing love of truth and accurate reasoning into a secondary place40 ,and the principles which have prevailed in politics have been adopted by theology for her own use4 ,in the one case1 convenience first1 truth second2 in the other1 emotional comfort first1 truth second4 ,if the immorality is less gross in the case of religion1 #bbb there is 8the stain of intellectual improbity40 ,and this is a crime against society1 for 8they who tamper with veracity from whatever motive are tampering with the vital force of human progress40 ,the intellectual insincerity which is here blamed is just as prevalent to- day4 ,the ,english have not changed their nature1 the 8political0 spirit is still rampant1 and we are ruled by the view that because compromise is necessary in politics it is also a good thing in the intellectual domain4 ,the ,fortnightly under ,mr4 ,morley's guidance was an effective organ of enlightenment4 ,i have no space to touch on the works of other men of letters and of men of science in these combative years1 but it is to be noted that1 while denunciations of modern thought poured from the pulpits1 a popular diffusion of freethought was carried on1 especially by ,mr4 ,bradlaugh in public lectures and in his paper1 the ,national ,reformer1 not without collisions with the civil authorities4 ,if we take the cases in which the civil authorities in ,england have intervened to repress the publication of unorthodox opinions during the last two centuries1 we find that the object has always been to prevent the spread of freethought among the masses4 #bbc ,the victims have been either poor1 uneducated people1 or men who propagated freethought in a popular form4 ,i touched upon this before in speaking of ,paine1 and it is borne out by the prosecutions of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries4 ,the unconfessed motive has been fear of the people4 ,theology has been regarded as a good instrument for keeping the poor in order1 and unbelief as a cause or accompaniment of dangerous political opinions4 ,the idea has not altogether disappeared that free thought is peculiarly indecent in the poor1 that it is highly desirable to keep them superstitious in order to keep them contented1 that they should be duly thankful for all the theological as well as social arrangements which have been made for them by their betters4 ,i may quote from an essay of ,mr4 ,frederic ,harrison an anecdote which admirably expresses the becoming attitude of the poor towards ecclesiastical institutions4 8,the master of a workhouse in ,essex was once called in to act as chaplain to a dying pauper4 ,the poor soul faintly murmured some hopes of heaven4 ,but this the master abruptly cut short and warned him to turn his last thoughts towards hell4 #8,and thankful you ought to be1' said he1 #8that you have a hell to go to4' 0 #bbd ,the most important ,english freethinkers who appealed to the masses were ,holyoake1 #c the apostle of 8secularism10 and ,bradlaugh4 ,the great achievement for which ,bradlaugh will be best remembered was the securing of the right of unbelievers to sit in ,parliament without taking an oath 7#ahhh74 ,the chief work to which ,holyoake 7who in his early years was imprisoned for blasphemy7 contributed was the abolition of taxes on the ,press1 which seriously hampered the popular diffusion of knowledge4 #d ,in ,england1 censorship of the ,press had long ago disappeared 7above1 p4 #aci72 in most other ,european countries it was abolished in the course of the nineteenth century4 #e ,in the progressive countries of ,europe there has been a marked growth of tolerance 7,i do not mean legal toleration1 but the tolerance #bbe of public opinion7 during the last thirty years4 ,a generation ago ,lord ,morley wrote3 8,the preliminary stage has scarcely been reached--the stage in which public opinion grants to every one the unrestricted right of shaping his own beliefs1 independently of those of the people who surround him40 ,i think this preliminary stage has now been passed4 ,take ,england4 ,we are now far from the days when ,dr4 ,arnold would have sent the elder ,mill to ,botany ,bay for irreligious opinions4 ,but we are also far from the days when ,darwin's ,descent created an uproar4 ,darwin has been buried in ,westminster ,abbey4 ,to-day books can appear denying the historical existence of ,jesus without causing any commotion4 ,it may be doubted whether what ,lord ,acton wrote in #ahgg would be true now3 8,there are in our day many educated men who think it right to persecute40 ,in #ahie1 ,lecky was a candidate for the representation of ,dublin ,university4 ,his rationalistic opinions were indeed brought up against him1 but he was successful1 though the majority of the constituents were orthodox4 ,in the seventies his candidature would have been hopeless4 ,the old commonplace that a freethinker is sure to be immoral is no longer heard4 ,we may say that we have now #bbf reached a stage at which it is admitted by every one who counts 7except at the ,vatican71 that there is nothing in earth or heaven which may not legitimately be treated without any of the assumptions which in old days authority used to impose4 ,in this brief review of the triumphs of reason in the nineteenth century1 we have been considering the discoveries of science and criticism which made the old orthodoxy logically untenable4 ,but the advance in freedom of thought1 the marked difference in the general attitude of men in all lands towards theological authority to-day from the attitude of a hundred years ago1 cannot altogether be explained by the power of logic4 ,it is not so much criticism of old ideas as the appearance of new ideas and interests that changes the views of men at large4 ,it is not logical demonstrations but new social conceptions that bring about a general transformation of attitude towards ultimate problems4 ,now the idea of the progress of the human race must1 ,i think1 be held largely answerable for this change of attitude4 ,it must1 ,i think1 be held to have operated powerfully as a solvent of theological beliefs4 ,i have spoken of the teaching of ,diderot and his friends that man's energies should be devoted to making the earth pleasant4 ,a #bbg new ideal was substituted for the old ideal based on theological propositions4 ,it inspired the ,english ,utilitarian philosophers 7,bentham1 ,james ,mill1 ,j4 ,s4 ,mill1 ,grote7 who preached the greatest happiness of the greatest number as the supreme object of action and the basis of morality4 ,this ideal was powerfully reinforced by the doctrine of historical progress1 which was started in ,france 7#agej7 by ,turgot1 who made progress the organic principle of history4 ,it was developed by ,condorcet 7#agic71 and put forward by ,priestley in ,england4 ,the idea was seized upon by the ,french socialistic philosophers1 ,saint-,simon and ,fourier4 ,the optimism of ,fourier went so far as to anticipate the time when the sea would be turned by man's ingenuity into lemonade1 when there would be #cg million poets as great as ,homer1 #cg million writers as great as ,molire1 #cg million men of science equal to ,newton4 ,but it was ,comte who gave the doctrine weight and power4 ,his social philosophy and his religion of ,humanity are based upon it4 ,the triumphs of science endorsed it2 it has been associated with1 though it is not necessarily implied in1 the scientific theory of evolution2 and it is perhaps fair to say that it has been the guiding spiritual force of the nineteenth century4 ,it has introduced #bbh the new ethical principle of duty to posterity4 ,we shall hardly be far wrong if we say that the new interest in the future and the progress of the race has done a great deal to undermine unconsciously the old interest in a life beyond the grave2 and it has dissolved the blighting doctrine of the radical corruption of man4 ,nowhere has the theory of progress been more emphatically recognized than in the ,monistic movement which has been exciting great interest in ,germany 7#aiaj-ab74 ,this movement is based on the ideas of ,haeckel1 who is looked up to as the master2 but those ideas have been considerably changed under the influence of ,ostwald1 the new leader4 ,while ,haeckel is a biologist1 ,ostwald's brilliant work was done in chemistry and physics4 ,the new ,monism differs from the old1 in the first place1 in being much less dogmatic4 ,it declares that all that is in our experience can be the object of a corresponding science4 ,it is much more a method than a system1 for its sole ultimate object is to comprehend all human experience in unified knowledge4 ,secondly1 while it maintains1 with ,haeckel1 evolution as the guiding principle in the history of living things1 it rejects his pantheism and his theory of thinking atoms4 ,the old mechanical theory of the #bbi physical world has been gradually supplanted by the theory of energy1 and ,ostwald1 who was one of the foremost exponents of energy1 has made it a leading idea of ,monism4 ,what has been called matter is1 so far as we know now1 simply a complex of energies1 and he has sought to extend the 8energetic0 principle from physical or chemical to biological1 psychical1 and social phenomena4 ,but it is to be observed that no finality is claimed for the conception of energy2 it is simply an hypothesis which corresponds to our present stage of knowledge1 and may1 as knowledge advances1 be superseded4 ,monism resembles the positive philosophy and religion of ,comte in so far as it means an outlook on life based entirely on science and excluding theology1 mysticism1 and metaphysics4 ,it may be called a religion1 if we adopt ,mr4 ,mac,taggart's definition of religion as 8an emotion resting on a conviction of the harmony between ourselves and the universe at large40 ,but it is much better not to use the word religion in connexion with it1 and the ,monists have no thought of finding a ,monistic1 as ,comte founded a ,positivist1 church4 ,they insist upon the sharp opposition between the outlook of science and the outlook of religion1 and find the mark of spiritual progress in the fact that religion is #bcj gradually becoming less indispensable4 ,the further we go back in the past1 the more valuable is religion as an element in civilization2 as we advance1 it retreats more and more into the background1 to be replaced by science4 ,religions have been1 in principle1 pessimistic1 so far as the present world is concerned2 ,monism is1 in principle1 optimistic1 for it recognizes that the process of his evolution has overcome1 in increasing measure1 the bad element in man1 and will go on overcoming it still more4 ,monism proclaims that development and progress are the practical principles of human conduct1 while the ,churches1 especially the ,catholic ,church1 have been steadily conservative1 and though they have been unable to put a stop to progress have endeavoured to suppress its symptoms--to bottle up the steam4 #f ,the ,monistic congress at ,hamburg in #aiaa had a success which surprised its promoters4 ,the movement bids fair to be a powerful influence in diffusing rationalistic thought4 #g ,if we take the three large ,states of #bca ,western ,europe1 in which the majority of ,christians are ,catholics1 we see how the ideal of progress1 freedom of thought1 and the decline of ecclesiastical power go together4 ,in ,spain1 where the ,church has enormous power and wealth and can still dictate to the ,court and the politicians1 the idea of progress1 which is vital in ,france and ,italy1 has not yet made its influence seriously felt4 ,liberal thought indeed is widely spread in the small educated class1 but the great majority of the whole population are illiterate1 and it is the interest of the ,church to keep them so4 ,the education of the people1 as all enlightened ,spaniards confess1 is the pressing need of the country4 ,how formidable are the obstacles which will have to be overcome before modern education is allowed to spread was shown four years ago by the tragedy of ,francisco ,ferrer1 which reminded everybody that in one corner of ,western ,europe the mediaeval spirit is still vigorous4 ,ferrer had devoted himself to the founding of modern schools in the province of ,catalonia 7since #aija74 ,he was a rationalist1 and his schools1 which had a marked success1 were entirely secular4 ,the ecclesiastical authorities execrated him1 and in the summer of #aiji chance gave them the means of destroying him4 ,a strike of workmen at #bcb ,barcelona developed into a violent revolution1 ,ferrer happened to be in ,barcelona for some days at the beginning of the movement1 with which he had no connection whatever1 and his enemies seized the opportunity to make him responsible for it4 ,false evidence 7including forged documents7 was manufactured4 ,evidence which would have helped his case was suppressed4 ,the ,catholic papers agitated against him1 and the leading ecclesiastics of ,barcelona urged the ,government not to spare the man who founded the modern schools1 the root of all the trouble4 ,ferrer was condemned by a military tribunal and shot 7,oct4 #ac74 ,he suffered in the cause of reason and freedom of thought1 though1 as there is no longer an ,inquisition1 his enemies had to kill him under the false charge of anarchy and treason4 ,it is possible that the indignation which was felt in ,europe and was most loudly expressed in ,france may prevent the repetition of such extreme measures1 but almost anything may happen in a country where the ,church is so powerful and so bigoted1 and the politicians so corrupt4 #a ,from ,greek monos1 alone4 #b ,besides the works referred to in the text1 may be mentioned3 ,winwood ,reade1 ,martyrdom of ,man1 #ahga2 ,mill1 ,three ,essays on ,religion2 ,w4 ,r4 ,cassels1 ,supernatural ,religion2 ,tyndall1 ,address to ,british ,association at ,belfast2 ,huxley1 ,animal ,automatism2 ,w4 ,k4 ,clifford1 ,body and ,mind2 all in #ahgd4 #c ,it may be noted that ,holyoake towards the end of his life helped to found the ,rationalist ,press ,association1 of which ,mr4 ,edward ,clodd has been for many years ,chairman4 ,this is the chief society in ,england for propagating rationalism1 and its main object is to diffuse in a cheap form the works of freethinkers of mark 7cp4 ,bibliography74 ,i understand that more than two million copies of its cheap reprints have been sold4 #d ,the advertisement tax was abolished in #ahec1 the stamp tax in #ahee1 the paper duty in #ahfa1 and the optional duty in #ahgj4 #e ,in ,austria-,hungary the police have the power to suppress printed matter provisionally4 ,in ,russia the ,press was declared free in #aije by an ,imperial decree1 which1 however1 has become a dead letter4 ,the newspapers are completely under the control of the police4 #f ,i have taken these points1 illustrating the ,monistic attitude to the ,churches1 from ,ostwald's ,monistic ,sunday ,sermons 7,german71 #aiaa1 #aiab4 #g ,i may note here that1 as this is not a history of thought1 ,i make no reference to recent philosophical speculations 7in ,america1 ,england1 and ,france7 which are sometimes claimed as tending to bolster up theology4 ,but they are all profoundly unorthodox4 #bcc ,,chapter ,,viii ,,the ,,justification ,,of ,,liberty ,,of ,,thought ,,most men who have been brought up in the free atmosphere of a modern ,state sympathize with liberty in its long struggle with authority and may find it difficult to see that anything can be said for the tyrannical1 and as they think extraordinarily perverse1 policy by which communities and governments persistently sought to stifle new ideas and suppress free speculation4 ,the conflict sketched in these pages appears as a war between light and darkness4 ,we exclaim that altar and throne formed a sinister conspiracy against the progress of humanity4 ,we look back with horror at the things which so many champions of reason endured at the hands of blind1 if not malignant1 bearers of authority4 ,but a more or less plausible case can be made out for coercion4 ,let us take the most limited view of the lawful powers of society over its individual members4 ,let us lay down1 with ,mill1 that 8the sole end for which mankind are warranted1 individually and collectively1 in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their members is self- protection10 and that coercion is only justified #bcd for the prevention of harm to others4 ,this is the minimum claim the ,state can make1 and it will be admitted that it is not only the right but the duty of the ,state to prevent harm to its members4 ,that is what it is for4 ,now no abstract or independent principle is discoverable1 why liberty of speech should be a privileged form of liberty of action1 or why society should lay down its arms of defence and fold its hands1 when it is persuaded that harm is threatened to it through the speech of any of its members4 ,the ,government has to judge of the danger1 and its judgment may be wrong2 but if it is convinced that harm is being done1 is it not its plain duty to interfere8 ,this argument supplies an apology for the suppression of free opinion by ,governments in ancient and modern times4 ,it can be urged for the ,inquisition1 for ,censorship of the ,press1 for ,blasphemy laws1 for all coercive measures of the kind1 that1 if excessive or ill-judged1 they were intended to protect society against what their authors sincerely believed to be grave injury1 and were simple acts of duty4 7,this apology1 of course1 does not extend to acts done for the sake of the alleged good of the victims themselves1 namely1 to secure their future salvation47 ,nowadays we condemn all such measures #bce and disallow the right of the ,state to interfere with the free expression of opinion4 ,so deeply is the doctrine of liberty seated in our minds that we find it difficult to make allowances for the coercive practices of our misguided ancestors4 ,how is this doctrine justified8 ,it rests on no abstract basis1 on no principle independent of society itself1 but entirely on considerations of utility4 ,we saw how ,socrates indicated the social value of freedom of discussion4 ,we saw how ,milton observed that such freedom was necessary for the advance of knowledge4 ,but in the period during which the cause of toleration was fought for and practically won1 the argument more generally used was the injustice of punishing a man for opinions which he honestly held and could not help holding1 since conviction is not a matter of will2 in other words1 the argument that error is not a crime and that it is therefore unjust to punish it4 ,this argument1 however1 does not prove the case for freedom of discussion4 ,the advocate of coercion may reply3 ,we admit that it is unjust to punish a man for private erroneous beliefs2 but it is not unjust to forbid the propagation of such beliefs if we are convinced that they are harmful2 it is not unjust to punish him1 not for holding them1 but for publishing them4 ,the truth #bcf is that1 in examining principles1 the word just is misleading4 ,all the virtues are based on experience1 physiological or social1 and justice is no exception4 ,just designates a class of rules or principles of which the social utility has been found by experience to be paramount and which are recognized to be so important as to override all considerations of immediate expediency4 ,and social utility is the only test4 ,it is futile1 therefore1 to say to a ,government that it acts unjustly in coercing opinion1 unless it is shown that freedom of opinion is a principle of such overmastering social utility as to render other considerations negligible4 ,socrates had a true instinct in taking the line that freedom is valuable to society4 ,the reasoned justification of liberty of thought is due to ,j4 ,s4 ,mill1 who set it forth in his work ,on ,liberty1 published in #ahei4 ,this book treats of liberty in general1 and attempts to fix the frontier of the region in which individual freedom should be considered absolute and unassailable4 ,the second chapter considers liberty of thought and discussion1 and if many may think that ,mill unduly minimized the functions of society1 underrating its claims as against the individual1 few will deny the justice of the chief arguments or question the general soundness of his conclusions4 #bcg ,pointing out that no fixed standard was recognized for testing the propriety of the interference on the part of the community with its individual members1 he finds the test in self-protection1 that is1 the prevention of harm to others4 ,he bases the proposition not on abstract rights1 but on 8utility1 in the largest sense1 grounded on the permanent interests of man as a progressive being40 ,he then uses the following argument to show that to silence opinion and discussion is always contrary to those permanent interests4 ,those who would suppress an opinion 7it is assumed that they are honest7 deny its truth1 but they are not infallible4 ,they may be wrong1 or right1 or partly wrong and partly right4 7#a7 ,if they are wrong and the opinion they would crush is true1 they have robbed1 or done their utmost to rob1 mankind of a truth4 ,they will say3 ,but we were justified1 for we exercised our judgment to the best of our ability1 and are we to be told that because our judgment is fallible we are not to use it8 ,we forbade the propagation of an opinion which we were sure was false and pernicious2 this implies no greater claim to infallibility than any act done by public authority4 ,if we are to act at all1 we must assume our own opinion to be true4 ,to this ,mill acutely replies3 8,there is the greatest difference #bch between assuming an opinion to be true1 because with every opportunity for contesting it it has not been refuted1 and assuming its truth for the purpose of not permitting its refutation4 ,complete liberty of contradicting and disproving our opinion is the very condition which justifies us in assuming its truth for purposes of action1 and on no other terms can a being with human faculties have any rational assurance of being right40 7#b7 ,if the received opinion which it is sought to protect against the intrusion of error is true1 the suppression of discussion is still contrary to general utility4 ,a received opinion may happen to be true 7it is very seldom entirely true72 but a rational certainty that it is so can only be secured by the fact that it has been fully canvassed but has not been shaken4 ,commoner and more important is 7#c7 the case where the conflicting doctrines share the truth between them4 ,here ,mill has little difficulty in proving the utility of supplementing one-sided popular truths by other truths which popular opinion omits to consider4 ,and he observes that if either of the opinions which share the truth has a claim not merely to be tolerated but to be encouraged1 it is the one which happens to be held by the minority1 since this is the one 8which #bci for the time being represents the neglected interests40 ,he takes the doctrines of ,rousseau1 which might conceivably have been suppressed as pernicious4 ,to the self-complacent eighteenth century those doctrines came as 8a salutary shock1 dislocating the compact mass of one-sided opinion40 ,the current opinions were indeed nearer to the truth than ,rousseau's1 they contained much less of error2 8nevertheless there lay in ,rousseau's doctrine1 and has floated down the stream of opinion along with it1 a considerable amount of exactly those truths which the popular opinion wanted2 and these are the deposit which we left behind when the flood subsided40 ,such is the drift of ,mill's main argument4 ,the present writer would prefer to state the justification of freedom of opinion in a somewhat different form1 though in accordance with ,mill's reasoning4 ,the progress of civilization1 if it is partly conditioned by circumstances beyond man's control1 depends more1 and in an increasing measure1 on things which are within his own power4 ,prominent among these are the advancement of knowledge and the deliberate adaptation of his habits and institutions to new conditions4 ,to advance knowledge and to correct errors1 unrestricted freedom of discussion is required4 #bdj ,history shows that knowledge grew when speculation was perfectly free in ,greece1 and that in modern times1 since restrictions on inquiry have been entirely removed1 it has advanced with a velocity which would seem diabolical to the slaves of the mediaeval ,church4 ,then1 it is obvious that in order to readjust social customs1 institutions1 and methods to new needs and circumstances1 there must be unlimited freedom of canvassing and criticizing them1 of expressing the most unpopular opinions1 no matter how offensive to prevailing sentiment they may be4 ,if the history of civilization has any lesson to teach it is this3 there is one supreme condition of mental and moral progress which it is completely within the power of man himself to secure1 and that is perfect liberty of thought and discussion4 ,the establishment of this liberty may be considered the most valuable achievement of modern civilization1 and as a condition of social progress it should be deemed fundamental4 ,the considerations of permanent utility on which it rests must outweigh any calculations of present advantage which from time to time might be thought to demand its violation4 ,it is evident that this whole argument depends on the assumption that the progress of the race1 its intellectual and moral development1 #bda is a reality and is valuable4 ,the argument will not appeal to any one who holds with ,cardinal ,newman that 8our race's progress and perfectibility is a dream1 because revelation contradicts it02 and he may consistently subscribe to the same writer's conviction that 8it would be a gain to this country were it vastly more superstitious1 more bigoted1 more gloomy1 more fierce in its religion1 than at present it shows itself to be40 ,while ,mill was writing his brilliant ,essay1 which every one should read1 the ,english ,government of the day 7#aheh7 instituted prosecutions for the circulation of the doctrine that it is lawful to put tyrants to death1 on the ground that the doctrine is immoral4 ,fortunately the prosecutions were not persisted in4 ,mill refers to the matter1 and maintains that such a doctrine as tyrannicide 7and1 let us add1 anarchy7 does not form any exception to the rule that 8there ought to exist the fullest liberty of professing and discussing1 as a matter of ethical conviction1 any doctrine1 however immoral it may be considered40 ,exceptions1 cases where the interference of the authorities is proper1 are only apparent1 for they really come under another rule4 ,for instance1 if there is a direct instigation #bdb to particular acts of violence1 there may be a legitimate case for interference4 ,but the incitement must be deliberate and direct4 ,if ,i write a book condemning existing societies and defending a theory of anarchy1 and a man who reads it presently commits an outrage1 it may clearly be established that my book made the man an anarchist and induced him to commit the crime1 but it would be illegitimate to punish me or suppress the book unless it contained a direct incitement to the specific crime which he committed4 ,it is conceivable that difficult cases might arise where a government might be strongly tempted1 and might be urged by public clamour1 to violate the principle of liberty4 ,let us suppose a case1 very improbable1 but which will make the issue clear and definite4 ,imagine that a man of highly magnetic personality1 endowed with a wonderful power of infecting others with his own ideas however irrational1 in short a typical religious leader1 is convinced that the world will come to an end in the course of a few months4 ,he goes about the country preaching and distributing pamphlets2 his words have an electrical effect2 and the masses of the uneducated and half-educated are persuaded that they have indeed only a few weeks to prepare for the day of ,judgment4 ,multitudes leave their #bdc occupations1 abandon their work1 in order to spend the short time that remains in prayer and listening to the exhortations of the prophet4 ,the country is paralyzed by the gigantic strike2 traffic and industries come to a standstill4 ,the people have a perfect legal right to give up their work1 and the prophet has a perfect legal right to propagate his opinion that the end of the world is at hand --an opinion which ,jesus ,christ and his followers in their day held quite as erroneously4 ,it would be said that desperate ills have desperate remedies1 and there would be a strong temptation to suppress the fanatic4 ,but to arrest a man who is not breaking the law or exhorting any one to break it1 or causing a breach of the peace1 would be an act of glaring tyranny4 ,many will hold that the evil of setting back the clock of liberty would out- balance all the temporary evils1 great as they might be1 caused by the propagation of a delusion4 ,it would be absurd to deny that liberty of speech may sometimes cause particular harm4 ,every good thing sometimes does harm4 ,government1 for instance1 which makes fatal mistakes2 law1 which so often bears hardly and inequitably in individual cases4 ,and can the ,christians urge any other plea for their religion when they are unpleasantly reminded that it has caused untold #bdd suffering by its principle of exclusive salvation8 ,once the principle of liberty of thought is accepted as a supreme condition of social progress1 it passes from the sphere of ordinary expediency into the sphere of higher expediency which we call justice4 ,in other words it becomes a right on which every man should be able to count4 ,the fact that this right is ultimately based on utility does not justify a government in curtailing it1 on the ground of utility1 in particular cases4 ,the recent rather alarming inflictions of penalties for blasphemy in ,england illustrate this point4 ,it was commonly supposed that the ,blasphemy laws 7see above1 p4 #aci71 though unrepealed1 were a dead letter4 ,but since ,december1 #aiaa1 half a dozen persons have been imprisoned for this offence4 ,in these cases ,christian doctrines were attacked by poor and more or less uneducated persons in language which may be described as coarse and offensive4 ,some of the judges seem to have taken the line that it is not blasphemy to attack the fundamental doctrines provided 8the decencies of controversy0 are preserved1 but that 8indecent0 attacks constitute blasphemy4 ,this implies a new definition of legal blasphemy1 and is entirely contrary to the intention of the laws4 ,sir #bde ,j4 ,f4 ,stephen pointed out that the decisions of judges from the time of ,lord ,hale 7,x,v,i,ith century7 to the trial of ,foote 7#ahhc7 laid down the same doctrine and based it on the same principle3 the doctrine being that it is a crime either to deny the truth of the fundamental doctrines of the ,christian religion or to hold them up to contempt or ridicule2 and the principle being that ,christianity is a part of the law of the land4 ,the apology offered for such prosecutions is that their object is to protect religious sentiment from insult and ridicule4 ,sir ,j4 ,f4 ,stephen observed3 8,if the law were really impartial and punished blasphemy only1 because it offends the feelings of believers1 it ought also to punish such preaching as offends the feelings of unbelievers4 ,all the more earnest and enthusiastic forms of religion are extremely offensive to those who do not believe them40 ,if the law does not in any sense recognize the truth of ,christian doctrine1 it would have to apply the same rule to the ,salvation ,army4 ,in fact the law 8can be explained and justified only on what ,i regard as its true principle--the principle of persecution40 ,the opponents of ,christianity may justly say3 ,if ,christianity is false1 why is it to be attacked only in polite language8 ,its goodness depends on its truth4 ,if you #bdf grant its falsehood1 you cannot maintain that it deserves special protection4 ,but the law imposes no restraint on the ,christian1 however offensive his teaching may be to those who do not agree with him2 therefore it is not based on an impartial desire to prevent the use of language which causes offence2 therefore it is based on the hypothesis that ,christianity is true2 and therefore its principle is persecution4 ,of course1 the present administration of the common law in regard to blasphemy does not endanger the liberty of those unbelievers who have the capacity for contributing to progress4 ,but it violates the supreme principle of liberty of opinion and discussion4 ,it hinders uneducated people from saying in the only ways in which they know how to say it1 what those who have been brought up differently say1 with impunity1 far more effectively and far more insidiously4 ,some of the men who have been imprisoned during the last two years1 only uttered in language of deplorable taste views that are expressed more or less politely in books which are in the library of a bishop unless he is a very ignorant person1 and against which the law1 if it has any validity1 ought to have been enforced4 ,thus the law1 as now administered1 simply penalizes bad taste and places disabilities #bdg upon uneducated freethinkers4 ,if their words offend their audience so far as to cause a disturbance1 they should be prosecuted for a breach of public order1 #a not because their words are blasphemous4 ,a man who robs or injures a church1 or even an episcopal palace1 is not prosecuted for sacrilege1 but for larceny or malicious damage or something of the kind4 ,the abolition of penalties for blasphemy was proposed in the ,house of ,commons 7by ,bradlaugh7 in #ahhi and rejected4 ,the reform is urgently needed4 ,it would 8prevent the recurrence at irregular intervals of scandalous prosecutions which have never in any one instance benefited any one1 least of all the cause which they were intended to serve1 and which sometimes afford a channel for the gratification of private malice under the cloak of religion40 #b ,the struggle of reason against authority has ended in what appears now to be a decisive and permanent victory for liberty4 ,in the most civilized and progressive countries1 freedom of discussion is recognized as a #bdh fundamental principle4 ,in fact1 we may say it is accepted as a test of enlightenment1 and the man in the street is forward in acknowledging that countries like ,russia and ,spain1 where opinion is more or less fettered1 must on that account be considered less civilized than their neighbours4 ,all intellectual people who count take it for granted that there is no subject in heaven or earth which ought not to be investigated without any deference or reference to theological assumptions4 ,no man of science has any fear of publishing his researches1 whatever consequences they may involve for current beliefs4 ,criticism of religious doctrines and of political and social institutions is free4 ,hopeful people may feel confident that the victory is permanent2 that intellectual freedom is now assured to mankind as a possession for ever2 that the future will see the collapse of those forces which still work against it and its gradual diffusion in the more backward parts of the earth4 ,yet history may suggest that this prospect is not assured4 ,can we be certain that there may not come a great set- back8 ,for freedom of discussion and speculation was1 as we saw1 fully realized in the ,greek and ,roman world1 and then an unforeseen force1 in the shape of ,christianity1 came in and laid chains upon the human mind and #bdi suppressed freedom and imposed upon man a weary struggle to recover the freedom which he had lost4 ,is it not conceivable that something of the same kind may occur again8 that some new force1 emerging from the unknown1 may surprise the world and cause a similar set-back8 ,the possibility cannot be denied1 but there are some considerations which render it improbable 7apart from a catastrophe sweeping away ,european culture74 ,there are certain radical differences between the intellectual situation now and in antiquity4 ,the facts known to the ,greeks about the nature of the physical universe were few4 ,much that was taught was not proved4 ,compare what they knew and what we know about astronomy and geography--to take the two branches in which 7besides mathematics7 they made most progress4 ,when there were so few demonstrated facts to work upon1 there was the widest room for speculation4 ,now to suppress a number of rival theories in favour of one is a very different thing from suppressing whole systems of established facts4 ,if one school of astronomers holds that the earth goes round the sun1 another that the sun goes round the earth1 but neither is able to demonstrate its proposition1 it is easy for an authority1 which has coercive power1 #bej to suppress one of them successfully4 ,but once it is agreed by all astronomers that the earth goes round the sun1 it is a hopeless task for any authority to compel men to accept a false view4 ,in short1 because she is in possession of a vast mass of ascertained facts about the nature of the universe1 reason holds a much stronger position now than at the time when ,christian theology led her captive4 ,all these facts are her fortifications4 ,again1 it is difficult to see what can arrest the continuous progress of knowledge in the future4 ,in ancient times this progress depended on a few2 nowadays1 many nations take part in the work4 ,a general conviction of the importance of science prevails to-day1 which did not prevail in ,greece4 ,and the circumstance that the advance of material civilization depends on science is perhaps a practical guarantee that scientific research will not come to an abrupt halt4 ,in fact science is now a social institution1 as much as religion4 ,but if science seems pretty safe1 it is always possible that in countries where the scientific spirit is held in honour1 nevertheless1 serious restrictions may be laid on speculations touching social1 political1 and religious questions4 ,russia has men of science inferior to none1 and ,russia has its notorious censorship4 ,it #bea is by no means inconceivable that in lands where opinion is now free coercion might be introduced4 ,if a revolutionary social movement prevailed1 led by men inspired by faith in formulas 7like the men of the ,french ,revolution7 and resolved to impose their creed1 experience shows that coercion would almost inevitably be resorted to4 ,nevertheless1 while it would be silly to suppose that attempts may not be made in the future to put back the clock1 liberty is in a far more favourable position now than under the ,roman ,empire4 ,for at that time the social importance of freedom of opinion was not appreciated1 whereas now1 in consequence of the long conflict which was necessary in order to re- establish it1 men consciously realize its value4 ,perhaps this conviction will be strong enough to resist all conspiracies against liberty4 ,meanwhile1 nothing should be left undone to impress upon the young that freedom of thought is an axiom of human progress4 ,it may be feared1 however1 that this is not likely to be done for a long time to come4 ,for our methods of early education are founded on authority4 ,it is true that children are sometimes exhorted to think for themselves4 ,but the parent or instructor who gives this excellent advice is confident that the results of the child's thinking for #beb himself will agree with the opinions which his elders consider desirable4 ,it is assumed that he will reason from principles which have already been instilled into him by authority4 ,but if his thinking for himself takes the form of questioning these principles1 whether moral or religious1 his parents and teachers1 unless they are very exceptional persons1 will be extremely displeased1 and will certainly discourage him4 ,it is1 of course1 only singularly promising children whose freedom of thought will go so far4 ,in this sense it might be said that 8distrust thy father and mother0 is the first commandment with promise4 ,it should be a part of education to explain to children1 as soon as they are old enough to understand1 when it is reasonable1 and when it is not1 to accept what they are told1 on authority4 #a ,blasphemy is an offence in ,germany2 but it must be proved that offence has actually been given1 and the penalty does not exceed imprisonment for three days4 #b ,the quotations are from ,sir ,j4 ,f4 ,stephen's article1 8,blasphemy and ,blasphemous ,libel10 in the ,fortnightly ,review1 ,march1 #ahhd1 pp4 #bhi-cah4 #bec ,,bibliography ,general ,lecky1 ,w4 ,e4 ,h41 ,history of the ,rise and ,influence of the ,spirit of ,rationalism in ,europe1 #b vols4 7originally published in #ahfe74 ,white1 ,a4 ,d41 ,a ,history of the ,warfare of ,science with ,theology in ,christendom1 #b vols41 #ahif4 ,robertson1 ,j4 ,m41 ,a ,short ,history of ,free-thought1 ,ancient and ,modern1 #b vols41 #aijf4 ,comprehensive1 but the notices of the leading freethinkers are necessarily brief1 as the field covered is so large4 ,the judgments are always independent4 ,benn1 ,a4 ,w41 ,the ,history of ,english ,rationalism in the ,nineteenth ,century1 #b vols41 #aijf4 ,very full and valuable ,greek ,thought ,gomperz1 ,th41 ,greek ,thinkers 7,english translation71 #d vols4 7#aija-ab74 ,english ,deists ,stephen1 ,leslie1 ,history of ,english ,thought in the ,eighteenth ,century1 vol4 i1 #ahha4 ,french ,freethinkers of ,eighteenth ,century ,morley1 ,j41 ,voltaire2 ,diderot and the ,encyclopaedists2 ,rousseau 7see above1 ,chapter ,,vi74 ,rationalistic ,criticism of the ,bible 7,nineteenth ,century7 ,articles in ,encyclopoedia ,biblica1 #d vols4 ,duff1 ,a41 ,history of ,old ,testament ,criticism1 #aiaj4 ,conybeare1 ,f4 ,c41 ,history of ,new ,testament ,criticism1 #aiaj4 ,persecution and ,inquisition ,lea1 ,h41 ,a ,history of the ,inquisition of the ,middle ,ages1 #c vols41 #ahhh2 ,a ,history of the ,inquisition of ,spain1 #d vols41 #aijf4 ,haynes1 ,e4 ,s4 ,p41 ,religious ,persecution1 #aijd4 ,for the case of ,ferrer see ,archer1 ,w41 ,the ,life1 ,trial and ,death of ,francisco ,ferrer1 #aiaa1 and ,mc,cabe1 ,j41 ,the ,martyrdom of ,ferrer1 #aiji4 ,toleration ,ruffini1 ,f41 ,religious ,liberty 7,english translation71 #aiab4 ,the essays of ,l4 ,luzzatti4 ,liberty of ,conscience and ,science 7,italian71 are suggestive4 #bed ,,index ,aesthetic movement1 #bac ,agnosticism1 meaning of1 #bac sq4 ,albigeois1 persecution of1 #eh ,anabaptists1 #gh1 #ie1 #abe ,anatomy1 #fe ,anaxagoras1 #bg ,annet1 ,peter1 #agb ,anthropology1 #ahi ,anthropomorphism4 #bc ,aristotle1 #ce1 #fh1 #fi ,arnold1 ,matthew1 #bah sqq4 ,asoka1 #ib ,astronomy1 #hg--ij ,atheism1 #ajc1 #aac1 #abc1 #acb1 #aeh ,athens1 #bg sqq4 ,augustine1 ,st41 #ee ,austria-,hungary1 #abb1 #bbd ,authority1 meaning of1 #ad sqq4 ,averroism1 #hh ,bacon1 ,roger1 #he ,bahrdt1 #age ,rain1 ,a41 #ahh ,bayle1 #ajg sq41 #ace sqq4 ,benn1 ,a4 ,w1 #aeb ,bible1 ,o4 ,t41 #aib sqq42 ,n4 ,t41 #aie sqq ,bible-worship1 #hb1 #bja ,blasphemy laws1 #bc1 #hh1 #aci sq41 #bdd sqq4 ,bolingbroke1 #aec ,bradlaugh1 #bbh1 #bdg ,bruno1 ,giordano1 #hd ,bchner1 #ahh ,buckle1 #ahh ,butler1 ,bishop1 ,analogy1 #aea sq4 ,calvin1 #gh ,cassels1 ,w ,castellion1 #id ,causation1 ,law of1 #ahc sq4 ,charron4 #ge ,cicero1 #ci ,clifford1 ,w4 ,k41 #bac ,clodd1 ,edward1 #bbd ,colenso1 ,bishop1 #aic ,collins1 ,anthony1 #ada ,comte1 ,auguste4 #ahh sq41 #bbi ,concordat of #ahja1 ,french1 #aae ,condorcet1 #bbg ,congregationalists 7,independents71 #ie1 #ii1 #ajj ,constantine ,i1 ,emperor1 #dg1 #ea ,copernicus1 #hg ,darwin2 ,darwinism1 #ahj1 #ahb1 #bbe ,defoe1 ,daniel1 #ajd sq4 ,deism1 #acg sqq4 ,democritus1 #be ,descartes1 #abi1 #aca ,design1 argument from1 #aha1 #agh ,d',holbach1 #aeh ,diderot1 #aeh sq4 ,diocletian1 ,emperor1 #de ,disestablishment1 #ajd1 #ajh ,dodwell1 ,henry1 #adg ,domitian1 ,emperor1 #db ,double ,truth1 #fh sq41 #acd ,edelmann1 #age ,epicureanism1 #cf sqq41 #hd ,essays and ,review1 #bjd sqq4 ,euripides1 #bi ,exclusive salvation1 #eb sq41 #fc1 #gh ,ferrer1 ,francisco1 #bca sq4 ,fortnightly ,review1 #bba ,fourier1 #bbg ,france1 #gd1 #ajj sqq41 #aeb sqq4 ,frederick the ,great1 #abj sq4 ,frederick ,,ii1 ,emperor1 #eh1 #gj ,free thought1 meaning of1 #ah ,galileo de' ,galilei1 #hg sqq4 ,gassendi1 #acj ,geology1 #agh sq4 ,germany1 #gh sqq41 #aag sqq41 #agd sqq4 ,gibbon1 #hb1 #afb sqq4 ,goethe1 #age ,greg1 ,w4 ,r41 #bjc ,gregory ,,ix1 ,pope1 #eg ,gregory ,,xvi1 ,encyclical of1 #abc sq4 ,haeckel1 #ahg1 #bbh ,hale1 ,lord ,chief ,justice1 #aci ,harrison1 ,frederic1 #ahh1 #bbc ,hegel1 #ahd sqq4 ,hell1 controversy on1 #bag #bee ,helmholtz1 #ahb ,heraclitus1 #be ,herbert of ,cherbury1 ,lord1 #adi ,hippocrates1 #fd ,hobbes1 #acj sq4 ,holland1 #ie1 #ajg1 #acj1 #aca ,holyoake1 #bbd ,homer1 #bd ,hume1 #afj sqq4 ,huxley1 #bac ,independents1 #ie1 #ih sq4 ,infallibility1 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