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diff --git a/10684-0.txt b/10684-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3030f1a --- /dev/null +++ b/10684-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5707 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10684 *** + +Note: Numbers enclosed in square brackets are page numbers. + +HOME UNIVERSITY LIBRARY +OF MODERN KNOWLEDGE + +No. 69 + +Editors: + +HERBERT FISHER, M.A., F.B.A. +Prof. GILBERT MURRAY, Litt.D., LL.D., F.B.A. +Prof. J. ARTHUR THOMSON, M.A. +Prof. WILLIAM T. BREWSTER, M.A. + + + +A HISTORY OF FREEDOM OF THOUGHT + +BY + +J. B. BURY, M.A., F.B.A + +HON. D.LITT. OF OXFORD, DURHAM, AND DUBLIN, AND HON. LL.D. OF EDINBURGH, +GLASGOW, AND ABERDEEN UNIVERSITIES; REGIUS PROFESSOR OF MODERN HISTORY, +CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY + +AUTHOR OF “HISTORY OF THE LATTER ROMAN EMPIRE,” “HISTORY OF GREECE,” +“HISTORY OF THE EASTERN ROMAN EMPIRE,” ETC. + + + +[IV] + +1913, + + + +[V] +CONTENTS + +CHAP. + + I Introductory + II Reason Free (Greece And Rome) + III Reason in Prison (The Middle Ages) + IV Prospect of Deliverance (The Renaissance and the Reformation) + V Religious Toleration + VI The Growth of Rationalism (Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries) + VII The Progress of Rationalism (Nineteenth Century) +VIII The Justification of Liberty of Thought + Bibliography + Index + + +[7] A HISTORY OF FREEDOM OF THOUGHT + +CHAPTER I + +FREEDOM OF THOUGHT AND THE FORCES AGAINST IT + +(INTRODUCTORY) + +IT is a common saying that thought is free. A man can never be hindered +from thinking whatever he chooses so long as he conceals what he thinks. +The working of his mind is limited only by the bounds of his experience +and the power of his imagination. But this natural liberty of private +thinking is of little value. It is unsatisfactory and even painful to +the thinker himself, if he is not permitted to communicate his thoughts +to others, and it is obviously of no value to his neighbours. Moreover +it is extremely difficult to hide thoughts that have any power over the +mind. If a man’s thinking leads him to call in question ideas and +customs which regulate the behaviour of those about him, to reject +beliefs which they hold, to see better ways of life than those they +follow, it is almost + +[8] impossible for him, if he is convinced of the truth of his own +reasoning, not to betray by silence, chance words, or general attitude +that he is different from them and does not share their opinions. Some +have preferred, like Socrates, some would prefer to-day, to face death +rather than conceal their thoughts. Thus freedom of thought, in any +valuable sense, includes freedom of speech. + +At present, in the most civilized countries, freedom of speech is taken +as a matter of course and seems a perfectly simple thing. We are so +accustomed to it that we look on it as a natural right. But this right +has been acquired only in quite recent times, and the way to its +attainment has lain through lakes of blood. 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 thing. +Human societies (there are some brilliant exceptions) have been +generally opposed to freedom of thought, or, in other words, to new +ideas, and it is easy to see why. + +The average brain is naturally lazy and tends to take the line of least +resistance. The mental world of the ordinary man consists of beliefs +which he has accepted without questioning and to which he is firmly +attached; he is instinctively hostile to anything which + +[9] would upset the established order of this familiar world. A new +idea, inconsistent with some of the beliefs which he holds, means the +necessity of rearranging his mind; and this process is laborious, +requiring a painful expenditure of brain-energy. To him and his fellows, +who form the vast majority, new ideas, and opinions which cast doubt on +established beliefs and institutions, seem evil because they are +disagreeable. + +The repugnance due to mere mental laziness is increased by a positive +feeling of fear. The conservative instinct hardens into the conservative +doctrine that the foundations of society are endangered by any +alterations in the structure. 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 +unchanged. Wherever that belief prevails, novel opinions are felt to be +dangerous as well as annoying, and any one who asks inconvenient +questions about the why and the wherefore of accepted principles is +considered a pestilent person. + +The conservative instinct, and the conservative doctrine which is its +consequence, are strengthened by superstition. If the social structure, +including the whole body of customs and opinions, is associated +intimately + +[10] with religious belief and is supposed to be under divine patronage, +criticism of the social order savours of impiety, while criticism of the +religious belief is a direct challenge to the wrath of supernatural +powers. + +The psychological motives which produce a conservative spirit hostile to +new ideas are reinforced by the active opposition of certain powerful +sections of the community, such as a class, a caste, or a priesthood, +whose interests are bound up with the maintenance of the established +order and the ideas on which it rests. + +Let us suppose, for instance, that a people believes that solar eclipses +are signs employed by their Deity for the special purpose of +communicating useful information to them, and that a clever man +discovers the true cause of eclipses. His compatriots in the first place +dislike his discovery because they find it very difficult to reconcile +with their other ideas; in the second place, it disturbs them, because +it upsets an arrangement which they consider highly advantageous to +their community; finally, it frightens them, as an offence to their +Divinity. The priests, one of whose functions is to interpret the divine +signs, are alarmed and enraged at a doctrine which menaces their power. + +In prehistoric days, these motives, operating + +[11] strongly, must have made change slow in communities which +progressed, and hindered some communities from progressing at all. But +they have continued to operate more or less throughout history, +obstructing knowledge and progress. We can observe them at work to-day +even in the most advanced societies, where they have no longer the power +to arrest development or repress the publication of revolutionary +opinions. We still meet people who consider a new idea an annoyance and +probably a danger. Of those to whom socialism is repugnant, how many are +there who have never examined the arguments for and against it, 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 +accustomed? And how many are there who would refuse to consider any +proposals for altering our imperfect matrimonial institutions, because +such an idea offends a mass of prejudice associated with religious +sanctions? They may be right or not, but if they are, it is not their +fault. They are actuated by the same motives which were a bar to +progress in primitive societies. The existence of people of this +mentality, reared in an atmosphere of freedom, side by side with others +who are always looking out for new ideas and + +[12] regretting that there are not more about, enables us to realize +how, when public opinion was formed by the views of such men, thought +was fettered and the impediments to knowledge enormous. + +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 principle, 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 grounds. We are apt to take for granted that +freedom of speech is a natural and inalienable birthright of man, and +perhaps to think that this is a sufficient answer to all that can be +said on the other side. But it is difficult to see how such a right can +be established. + +If a man has any “natural rights,” the right to preserve his life and +the right to reproduce his kind are certainly such. Yet human societies +impose upon their members restrictions in the exercise of both these +rights. A starving man is prohibited from taking food which belongs to +somebody else. Promiscuous reproduction is restricted by various laws or +customs. It is admitted that society is justified in restricting these +elementary rights, because without such restrictions an ordered society +could not exist. If then we + +[13] concede that the expression of opinion is a right of the same kind, +it is impossible to contend that on this ground it can claim immunity +from interference or that society acts unjustly in regulating it. But +the concession is too large. For whereas in the other cases the +limitations affect the conduct of every one, restrictions on freedom of +opinion affect only the comparatively small number who have any +opinions, revolutionary or unconventional, to express. The truth is that +no valid argument can be founded on the conception of natural rights, +because it involves an untenable theory of the relations between society +and its members. + +On the other hand, 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 +actions. 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 wife. They are responsible for the welfare of +the State, and if they are convinced that an opinion is dangerous, by +menacing the political, religious, or moral assumptions on which the +society is based, it is their duty to protect society against it, as +against any other danger. + +[14] + +The true answer to this argument for limiting freedom of thought will +appear in due course. It was far from obvious. A long time was needed to +arrive at the conclusion that coercion of opinion is a mistake, and only +a part of the world is yet convinced. That conclusion, so far as I can +judge, is the most important ever reached by men. It was the issue of a +continuous struggle between authority and reason—the subject of this +volume. The word authority requires some comment. + +If you ask somebody how he knows something, he may say, “I have it on +good authority,” or, “I read it in a book,” or, “It is a matter of +common knowledge,” or, “I learned it at school.” Any of these replies +means that he has accepted information from others, trusting in their +knowledge, without verifying their statements or thinking the matter out +for himself. And the greater part of most men’s knowledge and beliefs is +of this kind, taken without verification from their parents, teachers, +acquaintances, books, newspapers. When an English boy learns French, he +takes the conjugations and the meanings of the words on the authority of +his teacher or his grammar. The fact that in a certain place, marked on +the map, there is a populous city called Calcutta, is for most + +[15] people a fact accepted on authority. So is the existence of +Napoleon or Julius Caesar. Familiar astronomical facts are known only in +the same way, except by those who have studied astronomy. It is obvious +that every one’s knowledge would be very limited indeed, if we were not +justified in accepting facts on the authority of others. + +But we are justified only under one condition. The facts which we can +safely accept must be capable of demonstration or verification. The +examples I have given belong to this class. 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 true. I am confronted every day with evidence +which proves to me that, if I took the trouble, I could verify the +existence of Calcutta for myself. I cannot convince myself in this way +of the existence of Napoleon, but if I have doubts about it, a simple +process of reasoning shows me that there are hosts of facts which are +incompatible with his non-existence. I have no doubt that the earth is +some 93 millions of miles distant from the sun, because all astronomers +agree that it has been demonstrated, and their agreement is only +explicable on the supposition that this has been demonstrated and that, +if I took the trouble to work out the calculation, I should reach the +same result. + +[16] + +But all our mental furniture is not of this kind. The thoughts of the +average man consist not only of facts open to verification, but also of +many beliefs and opinions which he has accepted on authority and cannot +verify or prove. Belief in the Trinity depends on the authority of the +Church and is clearly of a different order from belief in the existence +of Calcutta. We cannot go behind the authority and verify or prove it. +If we accept it, we do so because we have such implicit faith in the +authority that we credit its assertions though incapable of proof. + +The distinction may seem so obvious as to be hardly worth making. But it +is important to be quite clear about it. The primitive man who had +learned from his elders that there were bears in the hills and likewise +evil spirits, soon verified the former statement by seeing a bear, but +if he did not happen to meet an evil spirit, it did not occur to him, +unless he was a prodigy, that there was a distinction between the two +statements; he would rather have argued, if he argued at all, that as +his tribesmen were right about the bears they were sure to be right also +about the spirits. In the Middle Ages a man who believed on authority +that there is a city called Constantinople and that comets are portents +signifying divine wrath, would not + +[17] distinguish the nature of the evidence in the two cases. You may +still sometimes hear arguments amounting to this: since I believe in +Calcutta on authority, am I not entitled to believe in the Devil on +authority? + +Now people at all times have been commanded or expected or invited to +accept on authority alone—the authority, for instance, of public +opinion, or a Church, or a sacred book—doctrines which are not proved or +are not capable of proof. Most beliefs about nature and man, which were +not founded on scientific observation, have served directly or +indirectly religious and social interests, and hence they have been +protected by force against the criticisms of persons who have the +inconvenient habit of using their reason. Nobody minds if his neighbour +disbelieves a demonstrable fact. If a sceptic denies that Napoleon +existed, or that water is composed of oxygen and hydrogen, he causes +amusement or ridicule. But if he denies doctrines which cannot be +demonstrated, such as the existence of a personal God or the immortality +of the soul, he incurs serious disapprobation and at one time he might +have been put to death. Our mediaeval friend would have only been called +a fool if he doubted the existence of Constantinople, but if he had +questioned the significance of comets he + +[18] might have got into trouble. It is possible that if he had been so +mad as to deny the existence of Jerusalem he would not have escaped with +ridicule, for Jerusalem is mentioned in the Bible. + +In the Middle Ages a large field was covered by beliefs which authority +claimed to impose as true, and reason was warned off the ground. But +reason cannot recognize arbitrary prohibitions or barriers, without +being untrue to herself. The universe of experience is her province, and +as its parts are all linked together and interdependent, it is +impossible for her to recognize any territory on which she may not +tread, or to surrender any of her rights to an authority whose +credentials she has not examined and approved. + +The uncompromising assertion by reason of her absolute rights throughout +the whole domain of thought is termed rationalism, and the slight stigma +which is still attached to the word reflects the bitterness of the +struggle between reason and the forces arrayed against her. The term is +limited to the field of theology, because it was in that field that the +self-assertion of reason was most violently and pertinaciously opposed. +In the same way free thought, the refusal of thought to be controlled by +any authority but its own, has a definitely theological reference. +Throughout + +[19] the conflict, authority has had great advantages. At any time the +people who really care about reason have been a small minority, and +probably will be so for a long time to come. Reason’s only weapon has +been argument. Authority has employed physical and moral violence, legal +coercion and social displeasure. Sometimes she has attempted to use the +sword of her adversary, thereby wounding herself. Indeed the weakest +point in the strategical position of authority was that her champions, +being human, could not help making use of reasoning processes and the +result was that they were divided among themselves. This gave reason her +chance. Operating, as it were, in the enemy’s camp and professedly in +the enemy’s cause, she was preparing her own victory. + +It may be objected that there is a legitimate domain for authority, +consisting of doctrines which lie outside human experience and therefore +cannot be proved or verified, but at the same time cannot be disproved. +Of course, any number of propositions can be invented which cannot be +disproved, and it is open to any one who possesses exuberant faith to +believe them; but no one will maintain that they all deserve credence so +long as their falsehood is not demonstrated. And if only some deserve +credence, who, except reason, + +[20] is to decide which? If the reply is, Authority, we are confronted +by the difficulty that many beliefs backed by authority have been +finally disproved and are universally abandoned. Yet some people speak +as if we were not justified in rejecting a theological doctrine unless +we can prove it false. But the burden of proof does not lie upon the +rejecter. I remember a conversation in which, when some disrespectful +remark was made about hell, a loyal friend of that establishment said +triumphantly, “But, absurd as it may seem, you cannot disprove it.” 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 eugenics, you could not disprove the statement, but would it, +on that account, have any claim to be believed? Some minds would be +prepared to accept it, if it were reiterated often enough, through the +potent force of suggestion. This force, exercised largely by emphatic +repetition (the theoretical basis, as has been observed, of the modern +practice of advertising), has played a great part in establishing +authoritative opinions and propagating religious creeds. Reason +fortunately is able to avail herself of the same help. + +The following sketch is confined to Western + +[21] civilization. It begins with Greece and attempts to indicate the +chief phases. It is the merest introduction to a vast and intricate +subject, which, treated adequately, would involve not only the history +of religion, of the Churches, of heresies, of persecution, but also the +history of philosophy, of the natural sciences and of political +theories. From the sixteenth century to the French Revolution nearly all +important historical events bore in some way on the struggle for freedom +of thought. It would require a lifetime to calculate, and many books to +describe, all the directions and interactions of the intellectual and +social forces which, since the fall of ancient civilization, have +hindered and helped the emancipation of reason. All one can do, all one +could do even in a much bigger volume than this, is to indicate the +general course of the struggle and dwell on some particular aspects +which the writer may happen to have specially studied. + + + +[21] CHAPTER II + +REASON FREE + +(GREECE AND ROME) + +WHEN we are asked to specify the debt which civilization owes to the +Greeks, their + +[22] achievements in literature and art naturally occur to us first of +all. But a truer answer may be that our deepest gratitude is due to them +as the originators of liberty of thought and discussion. For this +freedom of spirit was not only the condition of their speculations in +philosophy, their progress in science, their experiments in political +institutions; it was also a condition of their literary and artistic +excellence. Their literature, for instance, could not have been what it +is if they had been debarred from free criticism of life. But apart from +what they actually accomplished, even if they had not achieved the +wonderful things they did in most of the realms of human activity, their +assertion of the principle of liberty would place them in the highest +rank among the benefactors of the race; for it was one of the greatest +steps in human progress. + +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 curiosity. We have to take this character as a +fact. But it must be remembered that the Greeks consisted of a large +number of separate peoples, who varied largely in temper, customs and +traditions, + +[23] though they had important features common to all. Some were +conservative, or backward, or unintellectual compared with others. In +this chapter “the Greeks” does not mean all the Greeks, but only those +who count most in the history of civilization, especially the Ionians +and Athenians. + +Ionia in Asia Minor was the cradle of free speculation. The history of +European science and European philosophy begins in Ionia. Here (in the +sixth and fifth centuries B.C.) the early philosophers by using their +reason sought to penetrate into the origin and structure of the world. +They could not of course free their minds entirely from received +notions, but they began the work of destroying orthodox views and +religious faiths. Xenophanes may specially be named among these pioneers +of thought (though he was not the most important or the ablest), because +the toleration of his teaching illustrates the freedom of the atmosphere +in which these men lived. He went about from city to city, calling in +question on moral grounds the popular beliefs about the gods and +goddesses, and ridiculing the anthropomorphic conceptions which the +Greeks had formed of their divinities. “If oxen had hands and the +capacities of men, they would make gods in the shape of oxen.” This +attack on received + +[24] theology was an attack on the veracity of the old poets, especially +Homer, who was considered the highest authority on mythology. Xenophanes +criticized him severely for ascribing to the gods acts which, committed +by men, would be considered highly disgraceful. We do not hear that any +attempt was made to restrain him from thus assailing traditional beliefs +and branding Homer as immoral. We must remember that the Homeric poems +were never supposed to be the word of God. It has been said that Homer +was the Bible of the Greeks. The remark exactly misses the truth. The +Greeks fortunately had no Bible, and this fact was both an expression +and an important condition of their freedom. Homer’s poems were secular, +not religious, and it may be noted that they are freer from immorality +and savagery than sacred books that one could mention. Their authority +was immense; but it was not binding like the authority of a sacred book, +and so Homeric criticism was never hampered like Biblical criticism. + +In this connexion, notice may be taken of another expression and +condition of freedom, the absence of sacerdotalism. The priests of the +temples never became powerful castes, tyrannizing over the community in +their own interests and able to silence voices raised against religious +beliefs. The civil authorities + +[25] kept the general control of public worship in their own hands, and, +if some priestly families might have considerable influence, yet as a +rule the priests were virtually State servants whose voice carried no +weight except concerning the technical details of ritual. + +To return to the early philosophers, who were mostly materialists, the +record of their speculations is an interesting chapter in the history of +rationalism. Two great names may be selected, Heraclitus and Democritus, +because they did more perhaps than any of the others, by sheer hard +thinking, to train reason to look upon the universe in new ways and to +shock the unreasoned conceptions of common sense. It was startling to be +taught, for the first time, by Heraclitus, that the appearance of +stability and permanence which material things present to our senses is +a false appearance, and that the world and everything in it are changing +every instant. Democritus performed the amazing feat of working out an +atomic theory of the universe, which was revived in the seventeenth +century and is connected, in the history of speculation, with the most +modern physical and chemical theories of matter. No fantastic tales of +creation, imposed by sacred authority, hampered these powerful brains. + +All this philosophical speculation prepared + +[26] the way for the educationalists who were known as the Sophists. +They begin to appear after the middle of the fifth century. They worked +here and there throughout Greece, constantly travelling, training young +men for public life, and teaching them to use their reason. As educators +they had practical ends in view. They turned away from the problems of +the physical universe to the problems of human life—morality and +polities. Here they were confronted with the difficulty of +distinguishing between truth and error, and the ablest of them +investigated the nature of knowledge, the method of reason—logic— and +the instrument of reason—speech. Whatever their particular theories +might be, their general spirit was that of free inquiry and discussion. +They sought to test everything by reason. The second half of the fifth +century might be called the age of Illumination. + +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 authority. When a man is acquainted only with the +habits of his own country, they seem so much a matter of course that he +ascribes them to nature, but when he travels abroad and finds totally +different habits and standards of conduct prevailing, he begins to +understand + +[27] the power of custom; and learns that morality and religion are +matters of latitude. This discovery tends to weaken authority, and to +raise disquieting reflections, as in the case of one who, brought up as +a Christian, comes to realize that, if he had been born on the Ganges or +the Euphrates, he would have firmly believed in entirely different +dogmas. + +Of course these movements of intellectual freedom were, as in all ages, +confined to the minority. Everywhere the masses were exceedingly +superstitious. They believed that the safety of their cities depended on +the good-will of their gods. If this superstitious spirit were alarmed, +there was always a danger that philosophical speculations might be +persecuted. And this occurred in Athens. About the middle of the fifth +century Athens had not only become the most powerful State in Greece, +but was also taking the highest place in literature and art. She was a +full-fledged democracy. Political discussion was perfectly free. At this +time she was guided by the statesman Pericles, who was personally a +freethinker, or at least was in touch with all the subversive +speculations of the day. He was especially intimate with the philosopher +Anaxagoras who had come from Ionia to teach at Athens. In regard to the +popular gods Anaxagoras was a thorough-going + +[28] unbeliever. The political enemies of Pericles struck at him by +attacking his friend. They introduced and carried a blasphemy law, to +the effect that unbelievers and those who taught theories about the +celestial world might be impeached. It was easy to prove that Anaxagoras +was a blasphemer who taught that the gods were abstractions and that the +sun, to which the ordinary Athenian said prayers morning and evening, +was a mass of flaming matter. The influence of Pericles saved him from +death; he was heavily fined and left Athens for Lampsacus, where he was +treated with consideration and honour. + +Other cases are recorded which show that anti-religious thought was +liable to be persecuted. Protagoras, one of the greatest of the +Sophists, published a book On the Gods, the object of which seems to +have been to prove that one cannot know the gods by reason. The first +words ran: “Concerning the gods, I cannot say that they exist nor yet +that they do not exist. There are more reasons than one why we cannot +know. There is the obscurity of the subject and there is the brevity of +human life.” A charge of blasphemy was lodged against him and he fled +from Athens. But there was no systematic policy of suppressing free +thought. Copies of the work of Protagoras were collected and + +[29] burned, 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 price. Rationalistic ideas moreover were venturing to appear +on the stage, though the dramatic performances, at the feasts of the god +Dionysus, were religious solemnities. The poet Euripides was saturated +with modern speculation, and, while different opinions may be held as to +the tendencies of some of his tragedies, he often allows his characters +to express highly unorthodox views. He was prosecuted for impiety by a +popular politician. We may suspect that during the last thirty years of +the fifth century unorthodoxy spread considerably among the educated +classes. There was a large enough section of influential rationalists to +render impossible any organized repression of liberty, and the chief +evil of the blasphemy law was that it could be used for personal or +party reasons. Some of the prosecutions, about which we know, were +certainly due to such motives, others may have been prompted by genuine +bigotry and by the fear lest sceptical thought should extend beyond the +highly educated and leisured class. It was a generally accepted +principle among the Greeks, and afterwards among the Romans, that +religion was a good and necessary thing + +[30] for the common people. Men who did not believe in its truth +believed in its usefulness as a political institution, and as a rule +philosophers did not seek to diffuse disturbing “truth” among the +masses. It was the custom, much more than at the present day, for those +who did not believe in the established cults to conform to them +externally. Popular higher education was not an article in the programme +of Greek statesmen or thinkers. And perhaps it may be argued that in the +circumstances of the ancient world it would have been hardly +practicable. + +There was, however, one illustrious Athenian, who thought +differently—Socrates, the philosopher. Socrates was the greatest of the +educationalists, but unlike the others he taught gratuitously, though he +was a poor man. His teaching always took the form of discussion; the +discussion often ended in no positive result, but had the effect of +showing that some received opinion was untenable and that truth is +difficult to ascertain. He had indeed certain definite views about +knowledge and virtue, which are of the highest importance in the history +of philosophy, but for our present purpose his significance lies in his +enthusiasm for discussion and criticism. He taught those with whom he +conversed—and he conversed indiscriminately + +[31] with all who would listen to him—to bring all popular beliefs +before the bar of reason, to approach every inquiry with an open mind, +and not to judge by the opinion of majorities or the dictate of +authority; in short to seek for other tests of the truth of an opinion +than the fact that it is held by a great many people. 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 history. + +If the Athenians had had a daily press, Socrates would have been +denounced by the journalists as a dangerous person. They had a comic +drama, which constantly held up to ridicule philosophers and sophists +and their vain doctrines. We possess one play (the Clouds of +Aristophanes) in which Socrates is pilloried as a typical representative +of impious and destructive speculations. Apart from annoyances of this +kind, Socrates reached old age, pursuing the task of instructing his +fellow-citizens, without any evil befalling him. Then, at the age of +seventy, he was prosecuted as an atheist and corrupter of youth and was +put to death (399 B.C.). It is strange that if the Athenians really +thought him dangerous they should have suffered him so long. There can, +I think, be + +[32] little doubt that the motives of the accusation were political. [1] +Socrates, looking at things as he did, could not be sympathetic with +unlimited democracy, or approve of the principle that the will of the +ignorant majority was a good guide. He was probably known to sympathize +with those who wished to limit the franchise. When, after a struggle in +which the constitution had been more than once overthrown, democracy +emerged triumphant (403 B.C.), there was a bitter feeling against those +who had not been its friends, and of these disloyal persons Socrates was +chosen as a victim. If he had wished, he could easily have escaped. If +he had given an undertaking to teach no more, he would almost certainly +have been acquitted. As it was, of the 501 ordinary Athenians who were +his judges, a very large minority voted for his acquittal. Even then, if +he had adopted a different tone, he would not have been condemned to +death. + +He rose to the great occasion and vindicated freedom of discussion in a +wonderful unconventional speech. The Apology of Socrates, which was +composed by his most brilliant pupil, Plato the philosopher, reproduces + +[33] the general tenor of his defence. It is clear that he was not able +to meet satisfactorily the charge that he did not acknowledge the gods +worshipped by the city, and his explanations on this point are the weak +part of his speech. But he met the accusation that he corrupted the +minds of the young by a splendid plea for free discussion. This is the +most valuable section of the Apology; it is as impressive to-day as +ever. I think the two principal points which he makes are these— + +(1) 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 wrong. That is, he asserts the supremacy of the +individual conscience, as we should say, over human law. He represents +his own life-work as a sort of religious quest; he feels convinced that +in devoting himself to philosophical discussion he has done the bidding +of a super-human guide; and he goes to death rather than be untrue to +this personal conviction. “If you propose to acquit me,” he says, “on +condition that I abandon my search for truth, I will say: I thank you, O +Athenians, but I will obey God, who, as I believe, set me this task, +rather than you, and so long as I have breath and strength I will never + +[34] cease from my occupation with philosophy. I will continue the +practice of accosting whomever I meet and saying to him, ‘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 better?’ I know not what +death is—it may be a good thing, and I am not afraid of it. 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 bad.” + +(2) He insists on the public value of free discussion. “In me you have a +stimulating critic, persistently urging you with persuasion and +reproaches, persistently testing your opinions and trying to show you +that you are really ignorant of what you suppose you know. Daily +discussion of the matters about which you hear me conversing is the +highest good for man. Life that is not tested by such discussion is not +worth living.” + +Thus in what we may call the earliest justification of liberty of +thought we have two significant claims affirmed: the indefeasible right +of the conscience of the individual —a claim on which later struggles +for liberty were to turn; and the social importance of discussion and +criticism. The former claim is not based on argument but on intuition; +it rests in fact on the assumption + +[35] of some sort of superhuman moral principle, and to those who, not +having the same personal experience as Socrates, reject this assumption, +his pleading does not carry weight. The second claim, after the +experience of more than 2,000 years, can be formulated more +comprehensively now with bearings of which he did not dream. + +The circumstances of the trial of Socrates illustrate both the tolerance +and the intolerance which prevailed at Athens. His long immunity, the +fact that he was at last indicted from political motives and perhaps +personal also, the large minority in his favour, all show that thought +was normally free, and that the mass of intolerance which existed was +only fitfully invoked, and perhaps most often to serve other purposes. I +may mention the case of the philosopher Aristotle, who some seventy +years later left Athens because he was menaced by a prosecution for +blasphemy, the charge being a pretext for attacking one who belonged to +a certain political party. The persecution of opinion was never +organized. + +It may seem curious that to find the persecuting spirit in Greece we +have to turn to the philosophers. Plato, the most brilliant disciple of +Socrates, constructed in his later years an ideal State. In this State +he instituted + +[36] a religion considerably different from the current religion, and +proposed to compel all the citizens to believe in his gods on pain of +death or imprisonment. All freedom of discussion was excluded under the +cast-iron system which he conceived. But the point of interest in his +attitude is that he did not care much whether a religion was true, but +only whether it was morally useful; he was prepared to promote morality +by edifying fables; and he condemned the popular mythology not because +it was false, but because it did not make for righteousness. + +The outcome of the large freedom permitted at Athens was a series of +philosophies which had a common source in the conversations of Socrates. +Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics, the Epicureans, 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 movement, at least until the rise of modern science in a +new epoch of liberty. + +The doctrines of the Epicureans, Stoics, and Sceptics all aimed at +securing peace and guidance for the individual soul. They were widely +propagated throughout the Greek world from the third century B.C., and +we may say that from this time onward most + +[37] well-educated Greeks were more or less rationalists. The teaching +of Epicurus had a distinct anti-religious tendency. He considered fear +to be the fundamental motive of religion, and to free men’s minds from +this fear was a principal object of his teaching. He was a Materialist, +explaining the world by the atomic theory of Democritus and denying any +divine government of the universe. [2] He did indeed hold the existence +of gods, but, so far as men are concerned, his gods are as if they were +not—living in some remote abode and enjoying a “sacred and everlasting +calm.” They just served as an example of the realization of the ideal +Epicurean life. + +There was something in this philosophy which had the power to inspire a +poet of singular genius to expound it in verse. The Roman Lucretius +(first century B.C.) 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 World. [3] With all the fervour + +[38] of a religious enthusiast he denounces religion, sounding every +note of defiance, loathing, and contempt, and branding in burning words +the crimes to which it had urged man on. He rides forth as a leader of +the hosts of atheism against the walls of heaven. He explains the +scientific arguments as if they were the radiant revelation of a new +world; and the rapture of his enthusiasm is a strange accompaniment of a +doctrine which aimed at perfect calm. Although the Greek thinkers had +done all the work and the Latin poem is a hymn of triumph over prostrate +deities, yet in the literature of free thought it must always hold an +eminent place by the sincerity of its audacious, defiant spirit. In the +history of rationalism its interest would be greater if it had exploded +in the midst of an orthodox community. But the educated Romans in the +days of Lucretius were sceptical in religious matters, some of them were +Epicureans, and we may suspect that not many of those who read it were +shocked or influenced by the audacities of the champion of irreligion. + +The Stoic philosophy made notable contributions to the cause of liberty +and could hardly have flourished in an atmosphere where discussion was +not free. It asserted the rights of individuals against public + +[39] authority. Socrates had seen that laws may be unjust and that +peoples may go wrong, but he had found no principle for the guidance of +society. The Stoics discovered it in the law of nature, prior and +superior to all the customs and written laws of peoples, and this +doctrine, spreading outside Stoic circles, caught hold of the Roman +world and affected Roman legislation. + +These philosophies have carried us from Greece to Rome. In the later +Roman Republic and the early Empire, no restrictions were imposed on +opinion, and these philosophies, which made the individual the first +consideration, spread widely. Most of the leading men were unbelievers +in the official religion of the State, but they considered it valuable +for the purpose of keeping the uneducated populace in order. A Greek +historian expresses high approval of the Roman policy of cultivating +superstition for the benefit of the masses. This was the attitude of +Cicero, and the view that a false religion is indispensable as a social +machine was general among ancient unbelievers. It is common, in one form +or another, to-day; at least, religions are constantly defended on the +ground not of truth but of utility. This defence belongs to the +statecraft of Machiavelli, who taught that religion is necessary for +government, + +[40] and that it may be the duty of a ruler to support a religion which +he believes to be false. + +A word must be said of Lucian (second century A.D.), the last Greek man +of letters whose writings appeal to everybody. He attacked the popular +mythology with open ridicule. It is impossible to say whether his +satires had any effect at the time beyond affording enjoyment to +educated infidels who read them. Zeus in a Tragedy Part is one of the +most effective. 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 London. The absurdities +of anthropomorphism have never been the subject of more brilliant +jesting than in Lucian’s satires. + +The general rule of Roman policy was to tolerate throughout the Empire +all religions and all opinions. Blasphemy was not punished. The +principle was expressed in the maxim of the Emperor Tiberius: “If the +gods are insulted, let them see to it themselves.” An exception to the +rule of tolerance + +[41] was made in the case of the Christian sect, and the treatment of +this Oriental religion may be said to have inaugurated religious +persecution in Europe. It is a matter of interest to understand why +Emperors who were able, humane, and not in the least fanatical, adopted +this exceptional policy. + +For a long time the Christians were only known to those Romans who +happened to hear of them, as a sect of the Jews. The Jewish was the one +religion which, on account of its exclusiveness and intolerance, was +regarded by the tolerant pagans with disfavour and suspicion. But though +it sometimes came into collision with the Roman authorities and some +ill-advised attacks upon it were made, it was the constant policy of the +Emperors to let it alone and to protect the Jews against the hatred +which their own fanaticism aroused. But while the Jewish religion was +endured so long as it was confined to those who were born into it, the +prospect of its dissemination raised a new question. 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 race. Might not its expansion + +[42] beyond the Israelites involve ultimately a danger to the Empire? +For its spirit was incompatible with the traditions and basis of Roman +society. The Emperor Domitian seems to have seen the question in this +light, and he took severe measures to hinder the proselytizing of Roman +citizens. Some of those whom he struck may have been Christians, but if +he was aware of the distinction, there was from his point of view no +difference. Christianity resembled Judaism, from which it sprang, in +intolerance and in hostility towards Roman society, but it differed by +the fact that it made many proselytes while Judaism made few. + +Under Trajan we find that the principle has been laid down that to be a +Christian is an offence punishable by death. Henceforward Christianity +remained an illegal religion. But in practice the law was not applied +rigorously or logically. The Emperors desired, if possible, to extirpate +Christianity without shedding blood. Trajan laid down that Christians +were not to be sought out, that no anonymous charges were to be noticed, +and that an informer who failed to make good his charge should be liable +to be punished under the laws against calumny. Christians themselves +recognized that this edict practically protected them. There were + +[43] some executions in the second century—not many that are well +attested—and Christians courted the pain and glory of martyrdom. There +is evidence to show that when they were arrested their escape was often +connived at. In general, the persecution of the Christians was rather +provoked by the populace than desired by the authorities. The populace +felt a horror of this mysterious Oriental sect which openly hated all +the gods and prayed for the destruction of the world. When floods, +famines, and especially fires occurred they were apt to be attributed to +the black magic of the Christians. + +When any one was accused of Christianity, he was required, as a means of +testing the truth of the charge, to offer incense to the gods or to the +statues of deified Emperors. His compliance at once exonerated him. The +objection of the Christians—they and the Jews were the only objectors—to +the worship of the Emperors was, in the eyes of the Romans, one of the +most sinister signs that their religion was dangerous. 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 gods; +its intention was political, to promote union and loyalty; and it is not +surprising that those who denounced it should + +[44] be suspected of a disloyal spirit. But it must be noted that there +was no necessity for any citizen to take part in this worship. No +conformity was required from any inhabitants of the Empire who were not +serving the State as soldiers or civil functionaries. Thus the effect +was to debar Christians from military and official careers. + +The Apologies for Christianity which appeared at this period (second +century) might have helped, if the Emperors (to whom some of them were +addressed) had read them, to confirm the view that it was a political +danger. It would have been easy to read between the lines that, if the +Christians ever got the upper hand, they would not spare the cults of +the State. The contemporary work of Tatian (A Discourse to the Greeks) +reveals what the Apologists more or less sought to disguise, invincible +hatred towards the civilization in which they lived. 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 practices. [4] If the Emperors made an exception to their +tolerant policy in the case of Christianity, their purpose was to +safeguard tolerance. + +[45] + +In the third century the religion, though still forbidden, was quite +openly tolerated; the Church organized itself without concealment; +ecclesiastical councils assembled without interference. There were some +brief and local attempts at repression, there was only one grave +persecution (begun by Decius, A.D. 250, and continued by Valerian). In +fact, throughout this century, there were not many victims, though +afterwards the Christians invented a whole mythology of martyrdoms. Many +cruelties were imputed to Emperors under whom we know that the Church +enjoyed perfect peace. + +A long period of civil confusion, in which the Empire seemed to be +tottering to its fall, had been terminated by the Emperor Diocletian, +who, by his radical administrative reforms, helped to preserve the Roman +power in its integrity for another century. He desired to support his +work of political consolidation by reviving the Roman spirit, and he +attempted to infuse new life into the official religion. To this end he +determined to suppress the growing influence of the Christians, who, +though a minority, were very numerous, and he organized a persecution. +It was long, cruel and bloody; it was the most whole-hearted, general +and systematic effort to crush the forbidden faith. It was a + +[46] failure, the Christians were now too numerous to be crushed. After +the abdication of Diocletian, the Emperors who reigned in different +parts of the realm did not agree as to the expediency of his policy, and +the persecution ended by edicts of toleration (A.D. 311 and 313). These +documents have an interest for the history of religious liberty. + +The first, issued in the eastern provinces, ran as follows:— + +“We were particularly desirous of reclaiming into the way of reason and +nature the deluded Christians, who had renounced the religion and +ceremonies instituted by their fathers and, presumptuously despising the +practice of antiquity, had invented extravagant laws and opinions +according to the dictates of their fancy, and had collected a various +society from the different provinces of our Empire. The edicts which we +have published to enforce the worship of the gods, having exposed many +of the Christians to danger and distress, many having suffered death and +many more, who still persist in their impious folly, being left +destitute of any public exercise of religion, we are disposed to extend +to those unhappy men the effects of our wonted clemency. We permit them, +therefore, freely to profess their private opinions, and to assemble in +their conventicles + +[47] without fear or molestation, provided always that they preserve a +due respect to the established laws and government.” [5] + +The second, of which Constantine was the author, known as the Edict of +Milan, was to a similar effect, 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 heaven. + +The relations between the Roman government and the Christians raised the +general question of persecution and freedom of conscience. A State, with +an official religion, but perfectly tolerant of all creeds and cults, +finds that a society had arisen in its midst which is uncompromisingly +hostile to all creeds but its own and which, if it had the power, would +suppress all but its own. The government, in self-defence, decides to +check the dissemination of these subversive ideas and makes the +profession of that creed a crime, not on account of its particular +tenets, but on account of the social consequences of those tenets. The +members of the society cannot without violating their consciences and +incurring damnation abandon their exclusive doctrine. The principle of +freedom of conscience is asserted as superior to all obligations to the +State, and the State, confronted + +[48] by this new claim, is unable to admit it. Persecution is the +result. + +Even from the standpoint of an orthodox and loyal pagan the persecution +of the Christians is indefensible, because blood was shed uselessly. In +other words, it was a great mistake because it was unsuccessful. For +persecution is a choice between two evils. The alternatives are violence +(which no reasonable defender of persecution would deny to be an evil in +itself) and the spread of dangerous opinions. The first is chosen simply +to avoid the second, on the ground that the second is the greater evil. +But if the persecution is not so devised and carried out as to +accomplish its end, then you have two evils instead of one, and nothing +can justify this. From their point of view, the Emperors had good +reasons for regarding Christianity as dangerous and anti-social, but +they should either have let it alone or taken systematic measures to +destroy it. If at an early stage they had established a drastic and +systematic inquisition, they might possibly have exterminated it. This +at least would have been statesmanlike. But they had no conception of +extreme measures, and they did not understand —they had no experience to +guide them —the sort of problem they had to deal with. They hoped to +succeed by intimidation. + +[49] Their attempts at suppression were vacillating, fitful, and +ridiculously ineffectual. The later persecutions (of A.D. 250 and 303) +had no prospect of success. It is particularly to be observed that no +effort was made to suppress Christian literature. + +The higher problem whether persecution, even if it attains the desired +end, is justifiable, was not considered. The struggle hinged on +antagonism between the conscience of the individual and the authority +and supposed interests of the State. It was the question which had been +raised by Socrates, raised now on a wider platform in a more pressing +and formidable shape: what is to happen when obedience to the law is +inconsistent with obedience to an invisible master? Is it incumbent on +the State to respect the conscience of the individual at all costs, or +within what limits? The Christians did not attempt a solution, the +general problem did not interest them. They claimed the right of freedom +exclusively for themselves from a non-Christian government; 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 +calumniated. In any case, when a Christian State was established, they +would completely forget the principle which they + +[50] had invoked. The martyrs died for conscience, but not for liberty. +To-day the greatest of the Churches demands freedom of conscience in the +modern States which she does not control, but refuses to admit that, +where she had the power, it would be incumbent on her to concede it. + +If we review the history of classical antiquity as a whole, we may +almost say that freedom of thought was like the air men breathed. It was +taken for granted and nobody thought about it. If seven or eight +thinkers at Athens were penalized for heterodoxy, in some and perhaps in +most of these cases heterodoxy was only a pretext. They do not +invalidate the general facts that the advance of knowledge was not +impeded by prejudice, or science retarded by the weight of unscientific +authority. The educated Greeks were tolerant because they were friends +of reason and did not set up any authority to overrule reason. Opinions +were not imposed except by argument; you were not expected to receive +some “kingdom of heaven” like a little child, or to prostrate your +intellect before an authority claiming to be infallible. + +But this liberty was not the result of a conscious policy or deliberate +conviction, and therefore it was precarious. The problems + +[51] of freedom of thought, religious liberty, toleration, had not been +forced upon society and were never seriously considered. When +Christianity confronted the Roman government, no one saw that in the +treatment of a small, obscure, and, to pagan thinkers, uninteresting or +repugnant sect, a principle of the deepest social importance was +involved. A long experience of the theory and practice of persecution +was required to base securely the theory of freedom of thought. The +lurid policy of coercion which the Christian Church adopted, and its +consequences, would at last compel reason to wrestle with the problem +and discover the justification of intellectual liberty. The spirit of +the Greeks and Romans, alive in their works, would, after a long period +of obscuration, again enlighten the world and aid in re-establishing the +reign of reason, which they had carelessly enjoyed without assuring its +foundations. + +[1] This has been shown very clearly by Professor Jackson in the article +on “Socrates” in the Encyclopoedia Britannica, last edition. + +[2] He stated the theological difficulty as to the origin of evil in +this form: God either wishes to abolish evil and cannot, or can and will +not, or neither can nor will, or both can and will. The first three are +unthinkable, if he is a God worthy of the name; therefore the last +alternative must be true. Why then does evil exist? The inference is +that there is no God, in the sense of a governor of the world. + +[3] An admirable appreciation of the poem will be found in R. V. +Tyrrell’s Lectures on Latin Poetry. + +[4] For the evidence of the Apologists see A. Bouché-Leclercq, Religious +Intolerance and Politics (French, 1911) —a valuable review of the whole +subject. + +[5] This is Gibbon’s translation. + + + +CHAPTER III + +REASON IN PRISON + +(THE MIDDLE AGES) + +ABOUT ten years after the Edict of Toleration, Constantine the Great +adopted Christianity. This momentous decision inaugurated + +[52] a millennium in which reason was enchained, thought was enslaved, +and knowledge made no progress. + +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 enforced. When their faith became +the predominant creed and had the power of the State behind it, they +abandoned this view. They embarked on the hopeful enterprise of bringing +about a complete uniformity in men’s opinions on the mysteries of the +universe, and began a more or less definite policy of coercing thought. +This policy was adopted by Emperors and Governments partly on political +grounds; religious divisions, bitter as they were, seemed dangerous to +the unity of the State. But the fundamental principle lay in the +doctrine that salvation is to be found exclusively in the Christian +Church. The profound conviction that those who did not believe in its +doctrines would be damned eternally, and that God punishes theological +error as if it were the most heinous of crimes, led naturally to +persecution. It was a duty to impose on men the only true doctrine, +seeing that their own eternal interests were at stake, and to hinder +errors from spreading. Heretics were more + +[53] than ordinary criminals and the pains that man could inflict on +them were as nothing to the tortures awaiting them in hell. To rid the +earth of men who, however virtuous, were, through their religious +errors, enemies of the Almighty, was a plain duty. Their virtues were no +excuse. We must remember that, according to the humane doctrine of the +Christians, pagan, that is, merely human, virtues were vices, and +infants who died unbaptized passed the rest of time in creeping on the +floor of hell. The intolerance arising from such views could not but +differ in kind and intensity from anything that the world had yet +witnessed. + +Besides the logic of its doctrines, the character of its Sacred Book +must also be held partly accountable for the intolerant principles of +the Christian Church. 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 savagery. It would be +difficult to say how much harm has been done, in corrupting the morals +of men, by the precepts and examples of inhumanity, violence, and +bigotry which the reverent reader of the Old Testament, implicitly +believing in its inspiration, is bound to approve. It furnished an +armoury for the theory of + +[54] persecution. The truth is that Sacred Books are an obstacle to +moral and intellectual progress, because they consecrate the ideas of a +given epoch, and its customs, as divinely appointed. Christianity, by +adopting books of a long past age, placed in the path of human +development a particularly nasty stumbling-block. 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 and, +content with the New Testament, had rejected the inspiration of the Old. + +Under Constantine the Great and his successors, edict after edict +fulminated against the worship of the old pagan gods and against +heretical Christian sects. Julian the Apostate, who in his brief reign +(A.D. 361–3) sought to revive the old order of things, proclaimed +universal toleration, but he placed Christians at a disadvantage by +forbidding them to teach in schools. This was only a momentary check. +Paganism was finally shattered by the severe laws of Theodosius I (end +of fourth century). It lingered on here and there for more than another +century, especially at Rome and Athens, but had little importance. The +Christians were more concerned in striving among themselves than in + +[55] crushing the prostrate spirit of antiquity. The execution of the +heretic Priscillian in Spain (fourth century) inaugurated the punishment +of heresy by death. It is interesting to see a non-Christian of this age +teaching the Christian sects that they should suffer one another. +Themistius in an address to the Emperor Valens urged him to repeal his +edicts against the Christians with whom he did not agree, and expounded +a theory of toleration. “The religious beliefs of individuals are a +field in which the authority of a government cannot be effective; +compliance can only lead to hypocritical professions. Every faith should +be allowed; the civil government should govern orthodox and heterodox to +the common good. God himself plainly shows that he wishes various forms +of worship; there are many roads by which one can reach him.” + +No father of the Church has been more esteemed or enjoyed higher +authority than St. Augustine (died A.D. 410). He formulated the +principle of persecution for the guidance of future generations, basing +it on the firm foundation of Scripture—on words used by Jesus Christ in +one of his parables, “Compel them to come in.” Till the end of the +twelfth century the Church worked hard to suppress heterodoxies. There +was much + +[56] persecution, but it was not systematic. There is reason to think +that in the pursuit of heresy the Church was mainly guided by +considerations of its temporal interest, and was roused to severe action +only when the spread of false doctrine threatened to reduce its revenues +or seemed a menace to society. At the end of the twelfth century +Innocent III became Pope and under him the Church of Western Europe +reached the height of its power. He and his immediate successors are +responsible for imagining and beginning an organized movement to sweep +heretics out of Christendom. Languedoc in Southwestern France was +largely populated by heretics, whose opinions were considered +particularly offensive, known as the Albigeois. They were the subjects +of the Count of Toulouse, and were an industrious and respectable +people. But the Church got far too little money out of this anti- +clerical population, and Innocent called upon the Count to extirpate +heresy from his dominion. As he would not obey, the Pope announced a +Crusade against the Albigeois, and offered to all who would bear a hand +the usual rewards granted to Crusaders, including absolution from all +their sins. A series of sanguinary wars followed in which the +Englishman, Simon de Montfort, took part. There were + +[57] wholesale burnings and hangings of men, women and children. The +resistance of the people was broken down, though the heresy was not +eradicated, and the struggle ended in 1229 with the complete humiliation +of the Count of Toulouse. The important point of the episode is this: +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 +heresy. If he hesitated to persecute at the command of the Pope, he must +be coerced; his lands were forfeited; and his dominions were thrown open +to be seized by any one whom the Church could induce to attack him. 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 Faith. + +But in order to root out heresy it was necessary to discover it in its +most secret retreats. The Albigeois had been crushed, but the poison of +their doctrine was not yet destroyed. The organized system of searching +out heretics known as the Inquisition was founded by Pope Gregory IX +about A.D. 1233, and fully established by a Bull of Innocent IV (A.D. +1252) which regulated the machinery of persecution “as an integral part +of the social edifice in every city and every + +[58] State.” This powerful engine for the suppression of the freedom of +men’s religious opinions is unique in history. + +The bishops were not equal to the new talk undertaken by the Church, and +in every ecclesiastical province suitable monks were selected and to +them was delegated the authority of the Pope for discovering heretics. +These inquisitors had unlimited authority, they were subject to no +supervision and responsible to no man. 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 heresy. +The Emperor Frederick II, who was himself undoubtedly a freethinker, +made laws for his extensive dominions in Italy and Germany (between 1220 +and 1235), enacting that all heretics should be outlawed, that those who +did not recant should be burned, those who recanted should be +imprisoned, but if they relapsed should be executed; that their property +should be confiscated, their houses destroyed, and their children, to +the second generation, ineligible to positions of emolument unless they +had betrayed their father or some other heretic. + +Frederick’s legislation consecrated the stake as the proper punishment +for heresy. This + +[59] cruel form of death for that crime seems to have been first +inflicted on heretics by a French king (1017). We must remember that in +the Middle Ages, and much later, crimes of all kinds were punished with +the utmost cruelty. In England in the reign of Henry VIII there is a +case of prisoners being boiled to death. Heresy was the foulest of all +crimes; and to prevail against it was to prevail against the legions of +hell. The cruel enactments against heretics were strongly supported by +the public opinion of the masses. + +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 +escape. The inquisitors in the various kingdoms co-operated, and +communicated information; there was “a chain of tribunals throughout +continental Europe.” England stood outside the system, but from the age +of Henry IV and Henry V the government repressed heresy by the stake +under a special statute (A.D. 1400; repealed 1533; revived under Mary; +finally repealed in 1676). + +In its task of imposing unity of belief the Inquisition was most +successful in Spain. Here towards the end of the fifteenth century a +system was instituted which had peculiarities of its own and was very +jealous of + +[60] Roman interference. One of the achievements of the Spanish +Inquisition (which was not abolished till the nineteenth century) was to +expel the Moriscos or converted Moors, who retained many of their old +Mohammedan opinions and customs. It is also said to have eradicated +Judaism and to have preserved the country from the zeal of Protestant +missionaries. But it cannot be proved that it deserves the credit of +having protected Spain against Protestantism, for it is quite possible +that if the seeds of Protestant opinion had been sown they would, in any +case, have fallen dead on an uncongenial soil. Freedom of thought +however was entirely suppressed. + +One of the most efficacious means for hunting down heresy was the “Edict +of Faith,” which enlisted the people in the service of the Inquisition +and required every man to be an informer. 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 it, under fearful +penalties temporal and spiritual. In consequence, no one was free from +the suspicion of his neighbours or even of his own family. “No more +ingenious device has been invented to subjugate a whole population, to +paralyze its intellect, and to reduce it + +[61] to blind obedience. It elevated delation to the rank of high +religious duty.” + +The process employed in the trials of those accused of heresy in Spain +rejected every reasonable means for the ascertainment of truth. The +prisoner was assumed to be guilty, the burden of proving his innocence +rested on him; his judge was virtually his prosecutor. All witnesses +against him, however infamous, were admitted. The rules for allowing +witnesses for the prosecution were lax; those for rejecting witnesses +for the defence were rigid. Jews, Moriscos, and servants could give +evidence against the prisoner but not for him, and the same rule applied +to kinsmen to the fourth degree. The principle on which the Inquisition +proceeded was that better a hundred innocent should suffer than one +guilty person escape. Indulgences were granted to any one who +contributed wood to the pile. But the tribunal of the Inquisition did +not itself condemn to the stake, for the Church must not be guilty of +the shedding of blood. The ecclesiastical judge pronounced the prisoner +to be a heretic of whose conversion there was no hope, and handed him +over (“relaxed” him was the official term) to the secular authority, +asking and charging the magistrate “to treat him benignantly and +mercifully.” But this + +[62] formal plea for mercy could not be entertained by the civil power; +it had no choice but to inflict death; if it did otherwise, it was a +promoter of heresy. All princes and officials, according to the Canon +Law, must punish duly and promptly heretics handed over to them by the +Inquisition, under pain of excommunication. It is to be noted that the +number of deaths at the stake has been much over-estimated by popular +imagination; but the sum of suffering caused by the methods of the +system and the punishments that fell short of death can hardly be +exaggerated. + +The legal processes employed by the Church in these persecutions +exercised a corrupting influence on the criminal jurisprudence of the +Continent. Lea, the historian of the Inquisition, observes: “Of all the +curses which the Inquisition brought in its train, this perhaps was the +greatest—that, until the closing years of the eighteenth century, +throughout the greater part of Europe, the inquisitorial process, as +developed for the destruction of heresy, became the customary method of +dealing with all who were under any accusation.” + +The Inquisitors who, as Gibbon says, “defended nonsense by cruelties,” +are often regarded as monsters. It may be said for them and for the +kings who did their will that + +[63] they were not a bit worse than the priests and monarchs of +primitive ages who sacrificed human beings to their deities. The Greek +king, Agamemnon, who immolated his daughter Iphigenia to obtain +favourable winds from the gods, was perhaps a most affectionate father, +and the seer who advised him to do so may have been a man of high +integrity. They acted according to their beliefs. 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 suspected. +Hatred of heresy was a sort of infectious germ, generated by the +doctrine of exclusive salvation. + +It has been observed that this dogma also injured the sense of truth. As +man’s eternal fate was at stake, it seemed plainly legitimate or rather +imperative to use any means to enforce the true belief—even falsehood +and imposture. There was no scruple about the invention of miracles or +any fictions that were edifying. A disinterested appreciation of truth +will not begin to prevail till the seventeenth century. + +While this principle, with the associated doctrines of sin, hell, and +the last judgment, led to such consequences, there were other doctrines +and implications in Christianity which, forming a solid rampart against +the + +[64] advance of knowledge, blocked the paths of science in the Middle +Ages, and obstructed its progress till the latter half of the nineteenth +century. In every important field of scientific research, the ground was +occupied by false views which the Church declared to be true on the +infallible authority of the Bible. The Jewish account of Creation and +the Fall of Man, inextricably bound up with the Christian theory of +Redemption, excluded from free inquiry geology, zoology, and +anthropology. The literal interpretation of the Bible involved the truth +that the sun revolves round the earth. The Church condemned the theory +of the antipodes. One of the charges against Servetus (who was burned in +the sixteenth century; see below, p. 79) 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 honey. The Greek physician Hippocrates had based the study of +medicine and disease on experience and methodical research. In the +Middle Ages men relapsed to the primitive notions of a barbarous age. +Bodily ailments were ascribed to occult agencies—the malice of the Devil +or the wrath of God. St. Augustine said that the diseases of Christians +were caused by demons, + +[65] and Luther in the same way attributed them to Satan. It was only +logical that supernatural remedies should be sought to counteract the +effects of supernatural causes. There was an immense traffic in relics +with miraculous virtues, and this had the advantage of bringing in a +large revenue to the Church. Physicians were often exposed to suspicions +of sorcery and unbelief. Anatomy was forbidden, partly perhaps on +account of the doctrine of the resurrection of the body. The opposition +of ecclesiastics to inoculation in the eighteenth century was a survival +of the mediaeval view of disease. Chemistry (alchemy) was considered a +diabolical art and in 1317 was condemned by the Pope. The long +imprisonment of Roger Bacon (thirteenth century) who, while he professed +zeal for orthodoxy, had an inconvenient instinct for scientific +research, illustrates the mediaeval distrust of science. + +It is possible that the knowledge of nature would have progressed +little, even if this distrust of science on theological grounds had not +prevailed. For Greek science had ceased to advance five hundred years +before Christianity became powerful. After about 200 B.C. no important +discoveries were made. The explanation of this decay is not easy, but we +may be sure that it is to be sought in the + +[66] social conditions of the Greek and Roman world. 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 hostile. We may +suspect that the rebirth of science would in any case have been +postponed till new social conditions, which began to appear in the +thirteenth century (see next Chapter), had reached a certain maturity. +Theological prejudice may have injured knowledge principally by its +survival after the Middle Ages had passed away. In other words, the harm +done by Christian doctrines, in this respect, may lie less in the +obscurantism of the dark interval between ancient and modern +civilization, than in the obstructions which they offered when science +had revived in spite of them and could no longer be crushed. + +The firm belief in witchcraft, magic, and demons was inherited by the +Middle Ages from antiquity, but it became far more lurid and made the +world terrible. Men believed that they were surrounded by fiends +watching for every opportunity to harm them, that pestilences, storms, +eclipses, and famines were the work of the Devil; but they believed as +firmly that ecclesiastical rites were capable of coping with these +enemies. Some of the + +[67] early Christian Emperors legislated against magic, but till the +fourteenth century there was no systematic attempt to root out +witchcraft. The fearful epidemic, known as the Black Death, which +devastated Europe in that century, seems to have aggravated the haunting +terror of the invisible world of demons. Trials for witchcraft +multiplied, and for three hundred years the discovery of witchcraft and +the destruction of those who were accused of practising it, chiefly +women, was a standing feature of European civilization. Both the theory +and the persecution were supported by Holy Scripture. “Thou shalt not +suffer a witch to live” was the clear injunction of the highest +authority. Pope Innocent VIII issued a Bull on the matter (1484) in +which he asserted that plagues and storms are the work of witches, and +the ablest minds believed in the reality of their devilish powers. + +No story is more painful than the persecution of witches, and nowhere +was it more atrocious than in England and Scotland. I mention it because +it was the direct result of theological doctrines, and because, as we +shall see, it was rationalism which brought the long chapter of horrors +to an end. + +In the period, then, in which the Church exercised its greatest +influence, reason was + +[68] enchained in the prison which Christianity had built around the +human mind. It was not indeed inactive, but its activity took the form +of heresy; or, to pursue the metaphor, those who broke chains were +unable for the most part to scale the walls of the prison; their freedom +extended only so far as to arrive at beliefs, which, like orthodoxy +itself, were based on Christian mythology. There were some exceptions to +the rule. At the end of the twelfth century a stimulus from another +world began to make itself felt. The philosophy of Aristotle became +known to learned men in Western Christendom; their teachers were Jews +and Mohammedans. Among the Mohammedans there was a certain amount of +free thought, provoked by their knowledge of ancient Greek speculation. +The works of the freethinker Averroes (twelfth century) which were based +on Aristotle’s philosophy, propagated a small wave of rationalism in +Christian countries. Averroes held the eternity of matter and denied the +immortality of the soul; his general view may be described as pantheism. +But he sought to avoid difficulties with the orthodox authorities of +Islam by laying down the doctrine of double truth, that is the +coexistence of two independent and contradictory truths, the one +philosophical, and the other religious. This + +[69] did not save him from being banished from the court of the Spanish +caliph. In the University of Paris his teaching produced a school of +freethinkers who held that the Creation, the resurrection of the body, +and other essential dogmas, might be true from the standpoint of +religion but are false from the standpoint of reason. To a plain mind +this seems much as if one said that the doctrine of immortality is true +on Sundays but not on week-days, or that the Apostles’ Creed is false in +the drawing-room and true in the kitchen. This dangerous movement was +crushed, and the saving principle of double truth condemned, by Pope +John XXI. The spread of Averroistic and similar speculations called +forth the Theology of Thomas, of Aquino in South Italy (died 1274), a +most subtle thinker, whose mind had a natural turn for scepticism. He +enlisted Aristotle, hitherto the guide of infidelity, on the side of +orthodoxy, and constructed an ingenious Christian philosophy which is +still authoritative in the Roman Church. But Aristotle and reason are +dangerous allies for faith, 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 +solutions. + +There must always have been some private + +[70] and underground unbelief here and there, which did not lead to any +serious consequences. The blasphemous statement that the world had been +deceived by three impostors, Moses, Jesus, and Mohammed, was current in +the thirteenth century. It was attributed to the freethinking Emperor +Frederick II (died 1250), who has been described as “the first modern +man.” The same idea, in a milder form, was expressed in the story of the +Three Rings, which is at least as old. A Mohammedan ruler, desiring to +extort money from a rich Jew, summoned him to his court and laid a snare +for him. “My friend,” he said, “I have often heard it reported that thou +art a very wise man. Tell me therefore which of the three religions, +that of the Jews, that of the Mohammedans, and that of the Christians, +thou believest to be the truest.” The Jew saw that a trap was laid for +him and answered as follows: “My lord, 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 successors. 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 heir. The son to whom he gave +the ring acted in the same way as his father, and so the ring passed +from hand to + +[71] hand. At last it came into the possession of a man who had three +sons whom he loved equally. Unable to make up his mind to which of them +he should leave the ring, he promised it to each of them privately, 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 himself. On his death-bed he gave each of them a ring, +and each claimed to be his heir, but no one could prove his title +because the rings were indistinguishable, and the suit at law lasts till +this day. It is even so, my lord, with the three religions, given by God +to the three peoples. They each think they have the true religion, but +which of them really has it, is a question, like that of the rings, +still undecided.” This sceptical story became famous in the eighteenth +century, when the German poet, Lessing, built upon it his drama Nathan +the Sage, which was intended to show the unreasonableness of +intolerance. + + +CHAPTER IV + +PROSPECT OF DELIVERANCE + +(THE RENAISSANCE AND THE REFORMATION) + +THE intellectual and social movement which was to dispel the darkness of +the + +[72] Middle Ages and prepare the way for those who would ultimately +deliver reason from her prison, began in Italy in the thirteenth +century. The misty veil woven of credulity and infantile naïveté which +had hung over men’s souls and protected them from understanding either +themselves or their relation to the world began to lift. The individual +began to feel his separate individuality, to be conscious of his own +value as a person apart from his race or country (as in the later ages +of Greece and Rome); and the world around him began to emerge from the +mists of mediaeval dreams. The change was due to the political and +social conditions of the little Italian States, of which some were +republics and others governed by tyrants. + +To the human world, thus unveiling itself, the individual who sought to +make it serve his purposes required a guide; and the guide was found in +the ancient literature of Greece and Rome. Hence the whole +transformation, which presently extended from Italy to Northern Europe, +is known as the Renaissance, or rebirth of classical antiquity. But the +awakened interest in classical literature while it coloured the +character and stimulated the growth of the movement, supplying new +ideals and suggesting new points of view, was only the form in which the +change of spirit + +[73] began to express itself in the fourteenth century. The change might +conceivably have taken some other shape. Its true name is Humanism. + +At the time men hardly felt that they were passing into a new age of +civilization, nor did the culture of the Renaissance immediately produce +any open or general intellectual rebellion against orthodox beliefs. The +world was gradually assuming an aspect decidedly unfriendly to the +teaching of mediaeval orthodoxy; but there was no explosion of +hostility; it was not till the seventeenth century that war between +religion and authority was systematically waged. The humanists were not +hostile to theological authority or to the claims of religious dogma; +but they had discovered a purely human curiosity about this world and it +absorbed their interest. They idolized pagan literature which abounded +in poisonous germs; the secular side of education became all-important; +religion and theology were kept in a separate compartment. Some +speculative minds, which were sensitive to the contradiction, might seek +to reconcile the old religion with new ideas; but the general tendency +of thinkers in the Renaissance period was to keep the two worlds +distinct, and to practise outward conformity to the creed without any +real intellectual submission. + +[74] + +I may illustrate this double-facedness of the Renaissance by Montaigne +(second half of sixteenth century). His Essays make for rationalism, but +contain frequent professions of orthodox Catholicism, in which he was +perfectly sincere. There is no attempt to reconcile the two points of +view; in fact, he takes the sceptical position that there is no bridge +between reason and religion. The human intellect is incapable in the +domain of theology, and religion must be placed aloft, out of reach and +beyond the interference of reason; to be humbly accepted. But while he +humbly accepted it, on sceptical grounds which would have induced him to +accept Mohammadanism if he had been born in Cairo, his soul was not in +its dominion. It was the philosophers and wise men of antiquity, Cicero, +and Seneca, and Plutarch, who moulded and possessed his mind. It is to +them, and not to the consolations of Christianity, that he turns when he +discusses the problem of death. The religious wars in France which he +witnessed and the Massacre of St. Bartholomew’s Day (1572) were +calculated to confirm him in his scepticism. His attitude to persecution +is expressed in the remark that “it is setting a high value on one’s +opinions to roast men on account of them.” + +The logical results of Montaigne’s scepticism + +[75] were made visible by his friend Charron, who published a book On +Wisdom in 1601. Here it is taught that true morality is not founded on +religion, and the author surveys the history of Christianity to show the +evils which it had produced. He says of immortality that it is the most +generally received doctrine, the most usefully believed, and the most +weakly established by human reasons; but he modified this and some other +passages in a second edition. A contemporary Jesuit placed Charron in +the catalogue of the most dangerous and wicked atheists. He was really a +deist; but in those days, and long after, no one scrupled to call a non- +Christian deist an atheist. His book would doubtless have been +suppressed and he would have suffered but for the support of King Henry +IV. It has a particular interest because it transports us directly from +the atmosphere of the Renaissance, represented by Montaigne, into the +new age of more or less aggressive rationalism. + +What Humanism did in the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries, +at first in Italy, then in other countries, was to create an +intellectual atmosphere in which the emancipation of reason could begin +and knowledge could resume its progress. The period saw the invention of +printing and + +[76] the discovery of new parts of the globe, and these things were to +aid powerfully in the future defeat of authority. + +But the triumph of freedom depended on other causes also; it was not to +be brought about by the intellect alone. The chief political facts of +the period were the decline of the power of the Pope in Europe, the +decay of the Holy Roman Empire, and the growth of strong monarchies, in +which worldly interests determined and dictated ecclesiastical policy, +and from which the modern State was to develop. The success of the +Reformation was made possible by these conditions. Its victory in North +Germany was due to the secular interest of the princes, who profited by +the confiscation of Church lands. In England there was no popular +movement; the change was carried through by the government for its own +purposes. + +The principal cause of the Reformation was the general corruption of the +Church and the flagrancy of its oppression. 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 interests, +by which it was exclusively governed. All the European States based +their diplomacy on this assumption. Since the fourteenth century every +one acknowledged + +[77] the need of reforming the Church, and reform had been promised, but +things went from bad to worse, and there was no resource but rebellion. +The rebellion led by Luther was the result not of a revolt of reason +against dogmas, but of widely spread anti-clerical feeling due to the +ecclesiastical methods of extorting money, particularly by the sale of +Indulgences, the most glaring abuse of the time. It was his study of the +theory of Papal Indulgences that led Luther on to his theological +heresies. + +It is an elementary error, but one which is still shared by many people +who have read history superficially, that the Reformation established +religious liberty and the right of private judgment. What it did was to +bring about a new set of political and social conditions, under which +religious liberty could ultimately be secured, and, by virtue of its +inherent inconsistencies, to lead to results at which its leaders would +have shuddered. But nothing was further from the minds of the leading +Reformers than the toleration of doctrines differing from their own. +They replaced one authority by another. They set up the authority of the +Bible instead of that of the Church, but it was the Bible according to +Luther or the Bible according to Calvin. So far as the spirit of +intolerance went, there + +[78] was nothing to choose between the new and the old Churches. The +religious wars were not for the cause of freedom, but for particular +sets of doctrines; and in France, if the Protestants had been +victorious, it is certain that they would not have given more liberal +terms to the Catholics than the Catholics gave to them. + +Luther was quite opposed to liberty of conscience and worship, a +doctrine which was inconsistent with Scripture as he read it. He might +protest against coercion and condemn the burning of heretics, when he +was in fear that he and his party might be victims, but when he was safe +and in power, he asserted his real view that it was the duty of the +State to impose the true doctrine and exterminate heresy, which was an +abomination, that unlimited obedience to their prince in religious as in +other matters was the duty of subjects, and that the end of the State +was to defend the faith. He held that Anabaptists should be put to the +sword. With Protestants and Catholics alike the dogma of exclusive +salvation led to the same place. + +Calvin’s fame for intolerance is blackest. He did not, like Luther, +advocate the absolute power of the civil ruler; he stood for the control +of the State by the Church—a form of government which is commonly called +theocracy; + +[79] and he established a theocracy at Geneva. Here liberty was +completely crushed; false doctrines were put down by imprisonment, +exile, and death. The punishment of Servetus is the most famous exploit +of Calvin’s warfare against heresy. The Spaniard Servetus, who had +written against the dogma of the Trinity, was imprisoned at Lyons +(partly through the machinations of Calvin) and having escaped came +rashly to Geneva. He was tried for heresy and committed to the flames +(1553), though Geneva had no jurisdiction over him. Melanchthon, who +formulated the principles of persecution, praised this act as a +memorable example to posterity. Posterity however was one day to be +ashamed of that example. In 1903 the Calvinists of Geneva felt impelled +to erect an expiatory monument, in which Calvin “our great Reformer” is +excused as guilty of an error “which was that of his century.” + +Thus the Reformers, like the Church from which they parted, cared +nothing for freedom, they only cared for “truth.” If the mediaeval ideal +was to purge the world of heretics, the object of the Protestant was to +exclude all dissidents from his own land. The people at large were to be +driven into a fold, to accept their faith at the command of their +sovran. This was the principle laid down in the + +[80] religious peace which (1555) composed the struggle between the +Catholic Emperor and the Protestant German princes. 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 +Catholics. + +Nor did the Protestant creeds represent enlightenment. The Reformation +on the Continent was as hostile to enlightenment as it was to liberty; +and science, if it seemed to contradict the Bible, has as little chance +with Luther as with the Pope. The Bible, interpreted by the Protestants +or the Roman Church, was equally fatal to witches. In Germany the +development of learning received a long set-back. + +Yet the Reformation involuntarily helped the cause of liberty. The +result was contrary to the intentions of its leaders, was indirect, and +long delayed. In the first place, the great rent in Western +Christianity, substituting a number of theological authorities instead +of one—several gods, we may say, instead of one God—produced a weakening +of ecclesiastical authority in general. The religious tradition was +broken. In the second place, in the Protestant States, the supreme +ecclesiastical power was vested in the sovran; the sovran had other +interests besides those of + +[81] the Church to consider; and political reasons would compel him +sooner or later to modify the principle of ecclesiastical intolerance. +Catholic States in the same way were forced to depart from the duty of +not suffering heretics. The religious wars in France ended in a limited +toleration of Protestants. The policy of Cardinal Richelieu, who +supported the Protestant cause in Germany, illustrates how secular +interests obstructed the cause of faith. + +Again, the intellectual justification of the Protestant rebellion +against the Church had been the right of private judgment, that is, the +principle of religious liberty. But the Reformers had asserted it only +for themselves, and as soon as they had framed their own articles of +faith, they had practically repudiated it. This was the most glaring +inconsistency in the Protestant position; and the claim which they had +thrust aside could not be permanently suppressed. Once more, the +Protestant doctrines rested on an insecure foundation which no logic +could defend, and inevitably led from one untenable position to another. +If we are to believe on authority, 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 Rome? If we +decide against Rome, we must do so by means + +[82] of reason; but once we exercise reason in the matter, why should we +stop where Luther or Calvin or any of the other rebels stopped, unless +we assume that one of them was inspired? If we reject superstitions +which they rejected, there is nothing except their authority to prevent +us from rejecting all or some of the superstitions which they retained. +Moreover, their Bible-worship promoted results which they did not +foresee. [1] The inspired record on which the creeds depend became an +open book. Public attention was directed to it as never before, though +it cannot be said to have been universally read before the nineteenth +century. Study led to criticism, the difficulties of the dogma of +inspiration were appreciated, 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 believers. 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 accountable. In these ways, +Protestantism was adapted to be a stepping-stone to rationalism, and +thus served the cause of freedom. + +[83] + +That cause however was powerfully and directly promoted by one sect of +Reformers, who in the eyes of all the others were blasphemers and of +whom most people never think when they talk of the Reformation. I mean +the Socinians. Of their far-reaching influence something will be said in +the next chapter. + +Another result of the Reformation has still to be mentioned, its +renovating effect on the Roman Church, which had now to fight for its +existence. A new series of Popes who were in earnest about religion +began with Paul III (1534) and reorganized the Papacy and its resources +for a struggle of centuries. [2] The institution of the Jesuit order, +the establishment of the Inquisition at Rome, the Council of Trent, the +censorship of the Press (Index of Forbidden Books) were the expression +of the new spirit and the means to cope with the new situation. The +reformed Papacy was good fortune for believing children of the Church, +but what here concerns us is that one of its chief objects was to +repress freedom more effectually. Savonarola who preached right living +at Florence had been executed (1498) under Pope Alexander VI who was a +notorious profligate. If Savonarola had lived + +[84] in the new era he might have been canonized, but Giordano Bruno was +burned. + +Giordano Bruno had constructed a religious philosophy, based partly upon +Epicurus, from whom he took the theory of the infinity of the universe. +But Epicurean materialism was transformed into a pantheistic mysticism +by the doctrine that God is the soul of matter. Accepting the recent +discovery of Copernicus, which Catholics and Protestants alike rejected, +that the earth revolves round the sun, Bruno took the further step of +regarding the fixed stars as suns, each with its invisible satellites. +He sought to come to an understanding with the Bible, which (he held) +being intended for the vulgar had to accommodate itself to their +prejudices. Leaving Italy, because he was suspected of heresy, he lived +successively in Switzerland, France, England, and Germany, and in 1592, +induced by a false friend to return to Venice he was seized by order of +the Inquisition. Finally condemned in Rome, he was burned (1600) in the +Campo de’ Fiori, where a monument now stands in his honour, erected some +years ago, to the great chagrin of the Roman Church. + +Much is made of the fate of Bruno because he is one of the world’s +famous men. No country has so illustrious a victim of that era to +commemorate as Italy, but in other lands + +[85] blood just as innocent was shed for heterodox opinions. In France +there was rather more freedom than elsewhere under the relatively +tolerant government of Henry IV and of the Cardinals Richelieu and +Mazarin, till about 1660. But at Toulouse (1619) Lucilio Vanini, a +learned Italian who like Bruno wandered about Europe, was convicted as +an atheist and blasphemer; his tongue was torn out and he was burned. +Protestant England, under Elizabeth and James I, did not lag behind the +Roman Inquisition, but on account of the obscurity of the victims her +zeal for faith has been unduly forgotten. Yet, but for an accident, she +might have covered herself with the glory of having done to death a +heretic not less famous than Giordano Bruno. The poet Marlowe was +accused of atheism, but while the prosecution was hanging over him he +was killed in a sordid quarrel in a tavern (1593). Another dramatist +(Kyd) who was implicated in the charge was put to the torture. At the +same time Sir Walter Raleigh was prosecuted for unbelief but not +convicted. Others were not so fortunate. Three or four persons were +burned at Norwich in the reign of Elizabeth for unchristian doctrines, +among them Francis Kett who had been a Fellow of Corpus Christi, +Cambridge. Under James I, who + +[86] interested himself personally in such matters, Bartholomew Legate +was charged with holding various pestilent opinions. The king summoned +him to his presence and asked him whether he did not pray daily to Jesus +Christ. Legate replied he had prayed to Christ in the days of his +ignorance, but not for the last seven years. “Away, base fellow,” said +James, spurning him with his foot, “it shall never be said that one +stayeth in my palace that hath never prayed to our Saviour for seven +years together.” Legate, having been imprisoned for some time in +Newgate, was declared an incorrigible heretic and burned at Smithfield +(1611). Just a month later, one Wightman was burned at Lichfield, by the +Bishop of Coventry, for heterodox doctrines. It is possible that public +opinion was shocked by these two burnings. They were the last cases in +England of death for unbelief. Puritan intolerance, indeed, passed an +ordinance in 1648, by which all who denied the Trinity, Christ’s +divinity, the inspiration of Scripture, or a future state, were liable +to death, and persons guilty of other heresies, to imprisonment. But +this did not lead to any executions. + +The Renaissance age saw the first signs of the beginning of modern +science, but the mediaeval prejudices against the investigation + +[87] of nature were not dissipated till the seventeenth century, and in +Italy they continued to a much later period. The history of modern +astronomy begins in 1543, with the publication of the work of Copernicus +revealing the truth about the motions of the earth. The appearance of +this work is important in the history of free thought, because it raised +a clear and definite issue between science and Scripture; and Osiander, +who edited it (Copernicus was dying), forseeing the outcry it would +raise, stated untruly in the preface that the earth’s motion was put +forward only as a hypothesis. The theory was denounced by Catholics and +Reformers, and it did not convince some men (e.g. Bacon) who were not +influenced by theological prejudice. The observations of the Italian +astronomer Galileo de’ Galilei demonstrated the Copernican theory beyond +question. His telescope discovered the moons of Jupiter, and his +observation of the spots in the sun confirmed the earth’s rotation. In +the pulpits of Florence, where he lived under the protection of the +Grand Duke, his sensational discoveries were condemned. “Men of Galilee, +why stand ye gazing up into heaven?” He was then denounced to the Holy +Office of the Inquisition by two Dominican monks. Learning that his +investigations were being considered + +[88] at Rome, Galileo went thither, confident that he would be able to +convince the ecclesiastical authorities of the manifest truth of +Copernicanism. He did not realize what theology was capable of. In +February 1616 the Holy Office decided that the Copernican system was in +itself absurd, and, in respect of Scripture, heretical. Cardinal +Bellarmin, by the Pope’s direction, summoned Galileo and officially +admonished him to abandon his opinion and cease to teach it, otherwise +the Inquisition would proceed against him. Galileo promised to obey. The +book of Copernicus was placed on the Index. It has been remarked that +Galileo’s book on Solar Spots contains no mention of Scripture, and thus +the Holy Office, in its decree which related to that book, passed +judgment on a scientific, not a theological, question. + +Galileo was silenced for a while, but it was impossible for him to be +mute for ever. Under a new Pope (Urban VIII) he looked for greater +liberty, and there were many in the Papal circle who were well disposed +to him. He hoped to avoid difficulties by the device of placing the +arguments for the old and the new theories side by side, and pretending +not to judge between them. He wrote a treatise on the two systems (the +Ptolemaic and the Copernican) in the form + +[89] of Dialogues, of which the preface declares that the purpose is to +explain the pros and cons of the two views. But the spirit of the work +is Copernican. He received permission, quite definite as he thought, +from Father Riccardi (master of the Sacred Palace) to print it, and it +appeared in 1632. The Pope however disapproved of it, the book was +examined by a commission, and Galileo was summoned before the +Inquisition. He was old and ill, and the humiliations which he had to +endure are a painful story. He would probably have been more severely +treated, if one of the members of the tribunal had not been a man of +scientific training (Macolano, a Dominican), who was able to appreciate +his ability. Under examination, Galileo denied that he had upheld the +motion of the earth in the Dialogues, and asserted that he had shown the +reasons of Copernicus to be inconclusive. This defence was in accordance +with the statement in his preface, but contradicted his deepest +conviction. In struggling with such a tribunal, it was the only line +which a man who was not a hero could take. At a later session, 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 + +[90] theory. In the final examination, he was threatened with torture. +He said that before the decree of 1616 he had held the truth of the +Copernican system to be arguable, but since then he had held the +Ptolemaic to be true. Next day, he publicly abjured the scientific truth +which he had demonstrated. He was allowed to retire to the country, on +condition that he saw no one. In the last months of his life he wrote to +a friend to this effect: “The falsity of the Copernican system cannot be +doubted, especially by us Catholics. It is refuted by the irrefragable +authority of Scripture. The conjectures of Copernicus and his disciples +were all disposed of by the one solid argument: God’s omnipotence can +operate in infinitely various ways. If something appears to our +observation to happen in one particular way, we must not curtail God’s +arm, and sustain a thing in which we may be deceived.” The irony is +evident. + +Rome did not permit the truth about the solar system to be taught till +after the middle of the eighteenth century, and Galileo’s books remained +on the Index till 1835. The prohibition was fatal to the study of +natural science in Italy. + +The Roman Index reminds us of the significance of the invention of +printing in the struggle for freedom of thought, by making + +[91] it easy to propagate new ideas far and wide. Authority speedily +realized the danger, and took measures to place its yoke on the new +contrivance, which promised to be such a powerful ally of reason. Pope +Alexander VI inaugurated censorship of the Press by his Bull against +unlicensed printing (1501). In France King Henry II made printing +without official permission punishable by death. In Germany, censorship +was introduced in 1529. In England, under Elizabeth, books could not be +printed without a license, and printing presses were not allowed except +in London, Oxford, and Cambridge; the regulation of the Press was under +the authority of the Star Chamber. Nowhere did the Press become really +free till the nineteenth century. + +While the Reformation and the renovated Roman Church meant a reaction +against the Renaissance, the vital changes which the Renaissance +signified—individualism, a new intellectual attitude to the world, the +cultivation of secular knowledge—were permanent and destined to lead, +amid the competing intolerances of Catholic and Protestant powers, to +the goal of liberty. We shall see how reason and the growth of knowledge +undermined the bases of theological authority. At each step in this +process, in which philosophical speculation, historical + +[92] criticism, natural science have all taken part, the opposition +between reason and faith deepened; doubt, clear or vague, increased; and +secularism, derived from the Humanists, and always implying scepticism, +whether latent or conscious, substituted an interest in the fortunes of +the human race upon earth for the interest in a future world. And along +with this steady intellectual advance, toleration gained ground and +freedom won more champions. 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 sects, +and the principle of exclusiveness was broken down for reasons of +worldly expediency. Religious liberty was an important step towards +complete freedom of opinion. + +[1] The danger, however, was felt in Germany, and in the seventeenth +century the study of Scripture was not encouraged at German +Universities. + +[2] See Barry, Papacy and Modern Times (in this series), 113 seq. + + +CHAPTER V + +RELIGIOUS TOLERATION + +IN the third century B.C. the Indian king Asoka, a man of religious zeal +but of tolerant spirit, confronted by the struggle between two hostile +religions (Brahmanism and Buddhism), decided that both should be equally +privileged and honoured in his dominions. His ordinances on the matter +are memorable + +[93] as the earliest existing Edicts of toleration. In Europe, as we +saw, the principle of toleration was for the first time definitely +expressed in the Roman Imperial Edicts which terminated the persecution +of the Christians. + +The religious strife of the sixteenth century raised the question in its +modern form, and for many generations it was one of the chief problems +of statesmen and the subject of endless controversial pamphlets. +Toleration means incomplete religious liberty, and there are many +degrees of it. It might be granted to certain Christian sects; it might +be granted to Christian sects, but these alone; it might be granted to +all religions, but not to freethinkers; or to deists, but not to +atheists. It might mean the concession of some civil rights, but not of +others; it might mean the exclusion of those who are tolerated from +public offices or from certain professions. The religious liberty now +enjoyed in Western lands has been gained through various stages of +toleration. + +We owe the modern principle of toleration to the Italian group of +Reformers, who rejected the doctrine of the Trinity and were the fathers +of Unitarianism. The Reformation movement had spread to Italy, but Rome +was successful in suppressing it, and many heretics fled to Switzerland. +The anti-Trinitarian + +[94] group were forced by the intolerance of Calvin to flee to +Transylvania and Poland where they propagated their doctrines. The +Unitarian creed was moulded by Fausto Sozzini, generally known as +Socinus, and in the catechism of his sect (1574) persecution is +condemned. This repudiation of the use of force in the interest of +religion is a consequence of the Socinian doctrines. For, unlike Luther +and Calvin, 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 principles. In other words, there +was a strong rationalistic element which was lacking in the Trinitarian +creeds. + +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 Servetus, whereby he earned the malignant hatred of Calvin. +He maintained the innocence of error and ridiculed the importance which +the Churches laid on obscure questions such as predestination and the +Trinity. “To discuss the difference between the Law and the Gospel, +gratuitous remission of sins or imputed righteousness, is as if a man +were to discuss whether a prince was to come on horseback, + +[95] or in a chariot, or dressed in white or in red.” [1] Religion is a +curse if persecution is a necessary part of it. + +For a long time the Socinians and those who came under their influence +when, driven from Poland, they passed into Germany and Holland, were the +only sects which advocated toleration. It was adopted from them by the +Anabaptists and by the Arminian section of the Reformed Church of +Holland. And in Holland, the founder of the English Congregationalists, +who (under the name of Independents) played such an important part in +the history of the Civil War and the Commonwealth, learned the principle +of liberty of conscience. + +Socinus thought that this principle could be realized without abolishing +the State Church. He contemplated a close union between the State and +the prevailing Church, combined with complete toleration for other +sects. It is under this system (which has been called jurisdictional) +that religious liberty has been realized in European States. But there +is another and simpler method, that of separating Church from State and +placing all religions on an equality. This was the solution which the +Anabaptists would have preferred. They detested the State; and the +doctrine of religious liberty was not + +[96] precious to them. Their ideal system would have been an Anabaptist +theocracy; separation was the second best. + +In Europe, public opinion was not ripe for separation, inasmuch as the +most powerful religious bodies were alike in regarding toleration as +wicked indifference. But it was introduced in a small corner of the new +world beyond the Atlantic in the seventeenth century. The Puritans who +fled from the intolerance of the English Church and State and founded +colonies in New England, were themselves equally intolerant, not only to +Anglicans and Catholics, but to Baptists and Quakers. They set up +theocratical governments from which all who did not belong to their own +sect were excluded. Roger Williams had imbibed from the Dutch Arminians +the idea of separation of Church from State. On account of this heresy +he was driven from Massachusetts, and he founded Providence to be a +refuge for those whom the Puritan colonists persecuted. Here he set up a +democratic constitution in which the magistrates had power only in civil +matters and could not interfere with religion. Other towns were +presently founded in Rhode Island, and a charter of Charles II (1663) +confirmed the constitution, which secured to all citizens professing +Christianity, of whatever + +[97] form, the full enjoyment of political rights. Non-Christians were +tolerated, but were not admitted to the political rights of Christians. +So far, the new State fell short of perfect liberty. But the fact that +Jews were soon admitted, notwithstanding, to full citizenship shows how +free the atmosphere was. 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 government. + +Toleration was also established in the Roman Catholic colony of +Maryland, but in a different way. Through the influence of Lord +Baltimore an Act of Toleration was passed in 1649, notable as the first +decree, voted by a legal assembly, granting complete freedom to all +Christians. No one professing faith in Christ was to be molested in +regard to his religion. But the law was heavy on all outside this pale. +Any one who blasphemed God or attacked the Trinity or any member of the +Trinity was threatened by the penalty of death. The tolerance of +Maryland attracted so many Protestant settlers from Virginia that the +Protestants became a majority, and as soon as they won political +preponderance, they introduced an Act (1654) + +[98] excluding Papists and Prelatists from toleration. The rule of the +Baltimores was restored after 1660, and the old religious freedom was +revived, 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 end. + +It will be observed that in both these cases freedom was incomplete; but +it was much larger and more fundamental in Rhode Island, where it had +been ultimately derived from the doctrine of Socinus. [2] When the +colonies became independent of England the Federal Constitution which +they set up was absolutely secular, but it was left to each member of +the Union to adopt Separation or not (1789). If separation has become +the rule in the American States, 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 sects. It must be added that in Maryland +and a few southern States atheists still suffer from some political +disabilities. + +In England, the experiment of Separation would have been tried under the +Commonwealth, if the Independents had had their way. This policy was +overruled by Cromwell. + +[99] The new national Church included Presbyterians, Independents, and +Baptists, but liberty of worship was granted to all Christian sects, +except Roman Catholics and Anglicans. If the parliament had had the +power, this toleration would have been a mere name. The Presbyterians +regarded toleration as a work of the Devil, and would have persecuted +the Independents if they could. But under Cromwell’s autocratic rule +even the Anglicans lived in peace, and toleration was extended to the +Jews. In these days, voices were raised from various quarters advocating +toleration on general grounds. [3] The most illustrious advocate was +Milton, the poet, who was in favour of the severance of Church from +State. + +In Milton’s Areopagitica: a speech for the liberty of unlicensed +printing (1644), the freedom of the Press is eloquently sustained by +arguments which are valid for freedom of thought in general. It is shown +that the censorship will conduce “to the discouragement of all learning +and the stop of truth, not only by disexercising and blunting our +abilities in what we know already, but by hindering and cropping the +discovery that might be yet further made, both in religious + +[100] and civil wisdom.” For knowledge is advanced through the utterance +of new opinions, and truth is discovered by free discussion. If the +waters of truth “flow not in a perpetual progression they sicken into a +muddy pool of conformity and tradition.” Books which are authorized by +the licensers are apt to be, as Bacon said, “but the language of the +times,” and do not contribute to progress. The examples of the countries +where the censorship is severe do not suggest that it is useful for +morals: “look into Italy and Spain, whether those places be one scruple +the better, the honester, the wiser, the chaster, since all the +inquisitional rigour that hath been executed upon books.” Spain indeed +could reply, “We are, what is more important, more orthodox.” It is +interesting to notice that Milton places freedom of thought above civil +liberty: “Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely +according to conscience, above all other liberties.” + +With the restoration of the Monarchy and the Anglican Church, religious +liberty was extinguished by a series of laws against Dissenters. To the +Revolution we owe the Act of Toleration (1689) from which the religious +freedom which England enjoys at present is derived. It granted freedom +of worship to Presbyterians, Congregationalists, + +[101] Baptists and Quakers, but only to these; Catholics and Unitarians +were expressly excepted and the repressive legislation of Charles II +remained in force against them. It was a characteristically English +measure, logically inconsistent and absurd, a mixture of tolerance and +intolerance, but suitable to the circumstances and the state of public +opinion at the time. + +In the same year John Locke’s famous (first) Letter concerning +Toleration appeared in Latin. Three subsequent letters developed and +illustrated his thesis. The main argument is based on the principle that +the business of civil government is quite distinct from that of +religion, that the State is a society constituted only for preserving +and promoting the civil interests of its members —civil interests +meaning life, liberty, health, and the possession of property. The care +of souls is not committed to magistrates more than to other men. For the +magistrate can only use outward force; but true religion means the +inward persuasion of the mind, and the mind is so made that force cannot +compel it to believe. So too it is absurd for a State to make laws to +enforce a religion, for laws are useless without penalties, and +penalties are impertinent because they cannot convince. + +Moreover, even if penalties could change + +[102] men’s beliefs, this would not conduce to the salvation of souls. +Would more men be saved if all blindly resigned themselves to the will +of their rulers and accepted the religion of their country? For as the +princes of the world are divided in religion, one country alone would be +in the right, and all the rest of the world would have to follow their +princes to destruction; “and that which heightens the absurdity, and +very ill suits the notion of a deity, men would owe their eternal +happiness or their eternal misery to the places of their nativity.” This +is a principle on which Locke repeatedly insists. If a State is +justified in imposing a creed, it follows that in all the lands, except +the one or few in which the true faith prevails, it is the duty of the +subjects to embrace a false religion. If Protestantism is promoted in +England, Popery by the same rule will be promoted in France. “What is +true and good in England will be true and good at Rome too, in China, or +Geneva.” Toleration is the principle which gives to the true faith the +best chance of prevailing. + +Locke would concede full liberty to idolaters, by whom he means the +Indians of North America, and he makes some scathing remarks on the +ecclesiastical zeal which forced these “innocent pagans” to forsake + +[103] their ancient religion. But his toleration, though it extends +beyond the Christian pale, is not complete. He excepts in the first +place Roman Catholics, not on account of their theological dogmas but +because they “teach that faith is not to be kept with heretics,” that +“kings excommunicated forfeit their crowns and kingdoms,” and because +they deliver themselves up to the protection and service of a foreign +prince—the Pope. In other words, they are politically dangerous. His +other exception is atheists. “Those are not all to be tolerated who deny +the being of God. Promises, covenants and oaths, which are the bonds of +human society, can have no hold upon an atheist. The taking away of God, +though but even in thought, dissolves all. Besides also, those that by +their atheism undermine and destroy all religion, can have no pretence +of religion to challenge the privilege of a Toleration.” + +Thus Locke is not free from the prejudices of his time. These exceptions +contradict his own principle that “it is absurd that things should be +enjoined by laws which are not in men’s power to perform. And to believe +this or that to be true does not depend upon our will.” This applies to +Roman Catholics as to Protestants, to atheists as to deists. Locke, +however, perhaps thought + +[104] that the speculative opinion of atheism, which was uncommon in his +day, does depend on the will. He would have excluded from his State his +great contemporary Spinoza. + +But in spite of its limitations Locke’s Toleration is a work of the +highest value, and its argument takes us further than its author went. +It asserts unrestrictedly the secular principle, and its logical issue +is Disestablishment. A Church is merely “a free and voluntary society.” +I may notice the remark that if infidels were to be converted by force, +it was easier for God to do it “with armies of heavenly legions than for +any son of the Church, how potent soever, with all his dragoons.” This +is a polite way of stating a maxim analogous to that of the Emperor +Tiberius (above, p. 41). If false beliefs are an offence to God, it is, +really, his affair. + +The toleration of Nonconformists was far from pleasing extreme +Anglicans, and the influence of this party at the beginning of the +eighteenth century menaced the liberty of Dissenters. The situation +provoked Defoe, who was a zealous Nonconformist, to write his pamphlet, +The Shortest Way with the Dissenters (1702), an ironical attack upon the +principle of toleration. It pretends to show that the Dissenters are at +heart incorrigible rebels, that a gentle policy is useless, and suggests + +[105] that all preachers at conventicles should be hanged and all +persons found attending such meetings should be banished. This +exceedingly amusing but terribly earnest caricature of the sentiments of +the High Anglican party at first deceived and alarmed the Dissenters +themselves. But the High Churchmen were furious. Defoe was fined, +exposed in the pillory three times, and sent to Newgate prison. + +But the Tory reaction was only temporary. During the eighteenth century +a relatively tolerant spirit prevailed among the Christian sects and new +sects were founded. The official Church became less fanatical; many of +its leading divines were influenced by rationalistic thought. If it had +not been for the opposition of King George III, the Catholics might have +been freed from their disabilities before the end of the century. This +measure, eloquently advocated by Burke and desired by Pitt, was not +carried till 1829, and then under the threat of a revolution in Ireland. +In the meantime legal toleration had been extended to the Unitarians in +1813, but they were not relieved from all disabilities till the forties. +Jews were not admitted to the full rights of citizenship till 1858. + +The achievement of religious liberty in England in the nineteenth +century has been mainly the work of Liberals. The Liberal + +[106] 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 government. The +Disestablishment of the Church in Ireland in 1869 partly realized this +ideal, and now more than forty years later the Liberal party is seeking +to apply the principle to Wales. It is highly characteristic of English +politics and English psychology that the change should be carried out in +this piecemeal fashion. In the other countries of the British Empire the +system of Separation prevails; there is no connection between the State +and any sect; no Church is anything more than a voluntary society. But +secularization has advanced under the State Church system. It is enough +to mention the Education Act of 1870 and the abolition of religious +tests at Universities (1871). Other gains for freedom will be noticed +when I come to speak in another chapter of the progress of rationalism. + +If we compare the religious situation in France in the seventeenth with +that in the eighteenth century, it seems to be sharply contrasted with +the development in England. In England there was a great advance towards +religious liberty, in France there was a falling away. Until 1676 the +French Protestants + +[107] (Huguenots) were tolerated; for the next hundred years they were +outlaws. But the toleration, which their charter (the Edict of Nantes, +1598) secured them, was of a limited kind. They were excluded, for +instance, from the army; they were excluded from Paris and other cities +and districts. And the liberty which they enjoyed was confined to them; +it was not granted to any other sect. The charter was faithfully +maintained by the two great Cardinals (Richelieu and Mazarin) who +governed France under Louis XIII and Louis XIV, but when the latter +assumed the active power in 1661 he began a series of laws against the +Protestants which culminated in the revoking of the charter (1676) and +the beginning of a Protestant persecution. + +The French clergy justified this policy by the notorious text “Compel +them to come in,” and appealed to St. Augustine. Their arguments evoked +a defence of toleration by Bayle, a French Protestant who had taken +refuge in Holland. It was entitled a Philosophical Commentary on the +text “Compel them to come in” (1686) and in importance stands beside +Locke’s work which was being composed at the same time. Many of the +arguments urged by the two writers are identical. They agreed, and for +the same reasons, in excluding Roman Catholics. The + +[108] most characteristic thing in Bayle’s treatise is his sceptical +argument that, even if it were a right principle to suppress error by +force, no truth is certain enough to justify us in applying the theory. +We shall see (next chapter) this eminent scholar’s contribution to +rationalism. + +Though there was an immense exodus of Protestants from France, Louis did +not succeed in his design of extirpating heresy from his lands. In the +eighteenth century, under Louis XV, the presence of Protestants was +tolerated though they were outlaws; their marriages were not recognized +as legal, and they were liable at any moment to persecution. About the +middle of the century a literary agitation began, conducted mainly by +rationalists, but finally supported by enlightened Catholics, to relieve +the affliction of the oppressed sect. It resulted at last in an Edict of +Toleration (1787), which made the position of the Protestants endurable, +though it excluded them from certain careers. + +The most energetic and forceful leader in the campaign against +intolerance was Voltaire (see next chapter), and his exposure of some +glaring cases of unjust persecution did more than general arguments to +achieve the object. The most infamous case was that of Jean Calas, a +Protestant merchant of Toulouse, whose son committed suicide. A report + +[109] was set abroad that the young man had decided to join the Catholic +Church, and that his father, mother, and brother, filled with Protestant +bigotry, killed him, with the help of a friend. They were all put in +irons, tried, and condemned, though there were no arguments for their +guilt, except the conjecture of bigotry. Jean Calas was broken on the +wheel, his son and daughter cast into convents, his wife left to starve. +Through the activity of Voltaire, then living near Geneva, the widow was +induced to go to Paris, where she was kindly received, and assisted by +eminent lawyers; a judicial inquiry was made; the Toulouse sentence was +reversed and the King granted pensions to those who had suffered. This +scandal could only have happened in the provinces, according to +Voltaire: “at Paris,” he says, “fanaticism, powerful though it may be, +is always controlled by reason.” + +The case of Sirven, though it did not end tragically, was similar, and +the government of Toulouse was again responsible. He was accused of +having drowned his daughter in a well to hinder her from becoming a +Catholic, and was, with his wife, sentenced to death. Fortunately he and +his family had escaped to Switzerland, where they persuaded Voltaire of +their innocence. To get the sentence reversed was the work of nine +years, and this + +[110] time it was reversed at Toulouse. When Voltaire visited Paris in +1778 he was acclaimed by crowds as the “defender of Calas and the +Sirvens.” His disinterested practical activity against persecution was +of far more value than the treatise on Toleration which he wrote in +connexion with the Calas episode. It is a poor work compared with those +of Locke and Bayle. The tolerance which he advocates is of a limited +kind; he would confine public offices and dignities to those who belong +to the State religion. + +But if Voltaire’s system of toleration is limited, it is wide compared +with the religious establishment advocated by his contemporary, +Rousseau. Though of Swiss birth, Rousseau belongs to the literature and +history of France; but it was not for nothing that he was brought up in +the traditions of Calvinistic Geneva. His ideal State would, in its way, +have been little better than any theocracy. He proposed to establish a +“civil religion” which was to be a sort of undogmatic Christianity. But +certain dogmas, which he considered essential, were to be imposed on all +citizens on pain of banishment. Such were the existence of a deity, the +future bliss of the good and punishment of the bad, the duty of +tolerance towards all those who accepted the fundamental + +[111] articles of faith. 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 it. But by imposing indispensable beliefs, it +denies the principle of toleration. 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 Revolution. + +The Revolution established religious liberty in France. Most of the +leaders were unorthodox. Their rationalism was naturally of the +eighteenth-century type, and in the preamble to the Declaration of +Rights (1789) deism was asserted by the words “in the presence and under +the auspices of the Supreme Being” (against which only one voice +protested). The Declaration laid down that no one was to be vexed on +account of his religious opinions provided he did not thereby trouble +public order. Catholicism was retained as the “dominant” religion; +Protestants (but not Jews) were admitted to public office. Mirabeau, the +greatest statesman of the day, protested strongly against the use of +words like “tolerance” and “dominant.” He said: “The most unlimited +liberty of religion is in my eyes a right so sacred that to express it +by the word ‘toleration’ seems to me itself a sort of tyranny, + +[112] since the authority which tolerates might also not tolerate.” The +same protest was made in Thomas Paine’s Rights of Man which appeared two +years later: “Toleration is not the opposite of Intolerance, but is the +counterfeit of it. Both are despotisms. The one assumes itself the right +of withholding liberty of conscience, and the other of granting it.” +Paine was an ardent deist, and he added: “Were a bill brought into any +parliament, entitled ‘An Act to tolerate or grant liberty to the +Almighty to receive the worship of a Jew or a Turk,’ or ‘to prohibit the +Almighty from receiving it,’ all men would startle and call it +blasphemy. There would be an uproar. The presumption of toleration in +religious matters would then present itself unmasked.” + +The Revolution began well, but the spirit of Mirabeau was not in the +ascendant throughout its course. The vicissitudes in religious policy +from 1789 to 1801 have a particular interest, 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 overthrown. The State Church was reorganized by the Civil +Constitution of the Clergy (1790), by which French citizens were +forbidden to acknowledge the authority of the Pope and + +[113] the appointment of Bishops was transferred to the Electors of the +Departments, so that the commanding influence passed from the Crown to +the nation. Doctrine and worship were not touched. Under the democratic +Republic which succeeded the fall of the monarchy (1792–5) this +Constitution was maintained, but a movement to dechristianize France was +inaugurated, and the Commune of Paris ordered the churches of all +religions to be closed. The worship of Reason, with rites modelled on +the Catholic, was organized in Paris and the provinces. The government, +violently anti-Catholic, did not care to use force against the prevalent +faith; direct persecution would have weakened the national defence and +scandalized Europe. They naïvely hoped that the superstition would +disappear by degrees. Robespierre declared against the policy of +unchristianizing France, and when he had the power (April, 1795), he +established as a State religion the worship of the Supreme Being. “The +French people recognizes the existence of the Supreme Being and the +immortality of the Soul”; the liberty of other cults was maintained. +Thus, for a few months, Rousseau’s idea was more or less realized. It +meant intolerance. Atheism was regarded as a vice, and “all were +atheists who did not think like Robespierre.” + +[114] + +The democratic was succeeded by the middle-class Republic (1795–9), and +the policy of its government was to hinder the preponderance of any one +religious group; to hold the balance among all the creeds, but with a +certain partiality against the strongest, the Catholic, which +threatened, as was thought, to destroy the others or even the Republic. +The plan was to favour the growth of new rationalistic cults, and to +undermine revealed religion by a secular system of education. +Accordingly the Church was separated from the State by the Constitution +of 1795, which affirmed the liberty of all worship and withdrew from the +Catholic clergy the salaries which the State had hitherto paid. The +elementary schools were laicized. The Declaration of Rights, the +articles of the Constitution, and republican morality were taught +instead of religion. An enthusiast declared that “the religion of +Socrates, Marcus Aurelius, and Cicero would soon be the religion of the +world.” + +A new rationalistic religion was introduced under the name of +Theophilanthropy. It was the “natural religion” of the philosophers and +poets of the century, of Voltaire and the English deists—not the +purified Christianity of Rousseau, but anterior and superior to +Christianity. Its doctrines, briefly formulated, + +[115] were: God, immortality, fraternity, humanity; no attacks on other +religions, but respect and honour towards all; gatherings in a family, +or in a temple, to encourage one another to practise morality. Protected +by the government sometimes secretly, sometimes openly, it had a certain +success among the cultivated classes. + +The idea of the lay State was popularized under this rule, and by the +end of the century there was virtually religious peace in France. Under +the Consulate (from 1799) the same system continued, but Napoleon ceased +to protect Theophilanthropy. In 1801, though there seems to have been +little discontent with the existing arrangement, Napoleon decided to +upset it and bring the Pope upon the scene. The Catholic religion, as +that of the majority, was again taken under the special protection of +the State, the salaries of the clergy again paid by the nation, and the +Papal authority over the Church again recognized within well-defined +limits; while full toleration of other religions was maintained. This +was the effect of the Concordat between the French Republic and the +Pope. It is the judgment of a high authority that the nation, if it had +been consulted, would have pronounced against the change. It may be +doubted whether this is true. But Napoleon’s policy + +[116] seems to have been prompted by the calculation that, using the +Pope as an instrument, he could control the consciences of men, and more +easily carry out his plans of empire. + +Apart from its ecclesiastical policies and its experiments in new creeds +based on the principles of rationalistic thinkers, the French Revolution +itself has an interest, in connexion with our subject, as an example of +the coercion of reason by an intolerant faith. + +The leaders believed that, by applying certain principles, they could +regenerate France and show the world how the lasting happiness of +mankind can be secured. They acted in the name of reason, but their +principles were articles of faith, which were accepted just as blindly +and irrationally as the dogmas of any supernatural creed. One of these +dogmas was the false doctrine of Rousseau that man is a being who is +naturally good and loves justice and order. Another was the illusion +that all men are equal by nature. The puerile conviction prevailed that +legislation could completely blot out the past and radically transform +the character of a society. “Liberty, equality, and fraternity” was as +much a creed as the Creed of the Apostles; it hypnotized men’s minds +like a revelation from on high; and reason had as little part in its +propagation as in the spread + +[117] of Christianity or of Protestantism. It meant anything but +equality, fraternity, or liberty, especially liberty, when it was +translated into action by the fanatical apostles of “Reason,” who were +blind to the facts of human nature and defied the facts of econnomics. +Terror, the usual instrument in propagating religions, was never more +mercilessly applied. Any one who questioned the doctrines was a heretic +and deserved a heretic’s fate. And, as in most religious movements, the +milder and less unreasonable spirits succumbed to the fanatics. Never +was the name of reason more grievously abused than by those who believed +they were inaugurating her reign. + +Religious liberty, however, among other good things, did emerge from the +Revolution, at first in the form of Separation, and then under the +Concordat. The Concordat lasted for more than a century, under +monarchies and republics, till it was abolished in December, 1905, when +the system of Separation was introduced again. + +In the German States the history of religious liberty differs in many +ways, but it resembles the development in France in so far as toleration +in a limited form was at first brought about by war. The Thirty Years’ +War, which divided Germany in the first half + +[118] of the seventeenth century, and in which, as in the English Civil +War, religion and politics were mixed, was terminated by the Peace of +Westphalia (1648). By this act, three religions, the Catholic, the +Lutheran, and the Reformed [4] were legally recognized by the Holy Roman +Empire, and placed on an equality; all other religious were excluded. +But it was left to each of the German States, of which the Empire +consisted, to tolerate or not any religion it pleased. That is, every +prince could impose on his subjects whichever of the three religions he +chose, and refuse to tolerate the others in his territory. But he might +also admit one or both of the others, and he might allow the followers +of other creeds to reside in his dominion, and practise their religion +within the precincts of their own houses. Thus toleration varied, from +State to State, according to the policy of each particular prince. + +As elsewhere, so in Germany, considerations of political expediency +promoted the growth of toleration, especially in Prussia; and as +elsewhere, theoretical advocates exercised great influence on public +opinion. But the case for toleration was based by its German defenders +chiefly on legal, not, as in + +[119] England and France, on moral and intellectual grounds. They +regarded it as a question of law, and discussed it from the point of +view of the legal relations between State and Church. It had been +considered long ago from this standpoint by an original Italian thinker, +Marsilius of Padua (thirteenth century), who had maintained that the +Church had no power to employ physical coercion, and that if the lay +authority punished heretics, the punishment was inflicted for the +violation not of divine ordinances but of the law of the State, which +excluded heretics from its territory. + +Christian Thomasius may be taken as a leading exponent of the theory +that religious liberty logically follows from a right conception of law. +He laid down in a series of pamphlets (1693–1697) that the prince, who +alone has the power of coercion, has no right to interfere in spiritual +matters, while the clergy step beyond their province if they interfere +in secular matters or defend their faith by any other means than +teaching. But the secular power has no legal right to coerce heretics +unless heresy is a crime. And heresy is not a crime, but an error; for +it is not a matter of will. Thomasius, moreover, urges the view that the +public welfare has nothing to gain from unity of faith, that it makes no + +[120] difference what faith a man professes so long as he is loyal to +the State. His toleration indeed is not complete. He was much influenced +by the writings of his contemporary Locke, and he excepts from the +benefit of toleration the same classes which Locke excepted. + +Besides the influence of the jurists, 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 +toleration; and that the cause was promoted by the leading men of +letters, especially by Lessing, in the second half of the eighteenth +century. + +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 Prussia, in the person of Frederick the Great. A few +months after his accession (1740) he wrote in the margin of a State +paper, in which a question of religious policy occurred, that every one +should be allowed to get to heaven in his own way. His view that +morality was independent of religion and therefore compatible with all +religions, and that thus a man could be a good citizen—the only thing +which the State was entitled to demand—whatever faith he might profess, +led to the logical consequence of complete religious liberty. Catholics + +[121] were placed on an equality with Protestants, and the Treaty of +Westphalia was violated by the extension of full toleration to all the +forbidden sects. Frederick even conceived the idea of introducing +Mohammedan settlers into some parts of his realm. Contrast England under +George III, France under Louis XV, Italy under the shadow of the Popes. +It is an important fact in history, which has hardly been duly +emphasized, that full religious liberty was for the first time, in any +country in modern Europe, realized under a free-thinking ruler, the +friend of the great “blasphemer” Voltaire. + +The policy and principles of Frederick were formulated in the Prussian +Territorial Code of 1794, by which unrestricted liberty of conscience +was guaranteed, and the three chief religions, the Lutheran, the +Reformed, and the Catholic, were placed on the same footing and enjoyed +the same privileges. The system is “jurisdictional”; only, three +Churches here occupy the position which the Anglican Church alone +occupies in England. The rest of Germany did not begin to move in the +direction pointed out by Prussia until, by one of the last acts of the +Holy Roman Empire (1803), the Westphalian settlement had been modified. +Before the foundation of the new Empire (1870), freedom was established +throughout Germany. + +[122] + +In Austria, the Emperor Joseph II issued an Edict of Toleration in 1781, +which may be considered a broad measure for a Catholic State at that +time. Joseph was a sincere Catholic, but he was not impervious to the +enlightened ideas of his age; he was an admirer of Frederick, and his +edict was prompted by a genuinely tolerant spirit, such as had not +inspired the English Act of 1689. It extended only to the Lutheran and +Reformed sects and the communities of the Greek Church which had entered +into union with Rome, and it was of a limited kind. Religious liberty +was not established till 1867. + +The measure of Joseph applied to the Austrian States in Italy, and +helped to prepare that country for the idea of religious freedom. It is +notable that in Italy in the eighteenth century toleration found its +advocate, not in a rationalist or a philosopher, but in a Catholic +ecclesiastic, Tamburinni, who (under the name of his friend +Trautmansdorf) published a work On Ecclesiastical and Civil Toleration +(1783). A sharp line is drawn between the provinces of the Church and +the State, persecution and the Inquisition are condemned, coercion of +conscience is declared inconsistent with the Christian spirit, and the +principle is laid down that the sovran should only exercise coercion +where + +[123] the interests of public safety are concerned. Like Locke, the +author thinks that atheism is a legitimate case for such coercion. + +The new States which Napoleon set up in Italy exhibited toleration in +various degrees, but real liberty was first introduced in Piedmont by +Cavour (1848), 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 1870. The union of Italy, with all that it meant, is the most +signal and dramatic act in the triumph of the ideas of the modern State +over the traditional principles of the Christian Church. Rome, which +preserved those principles most faithfully, has offered a steadfast, we +may say a heroic, resistance to the liberal ideas which swept Europe in +the nineteenth century. The guides of her policy grasped thoroughly the +danger which liberal thought meant for an institution which, founded in +a remote past, claimed to be unchangeable and never out of date. Gregory +XVI issued a solemn protest maintaining authority against freedom, the +mediaeval against the modern ideal, in an Encyclical Letter (1832), +which was intended as a rebuke to some young French Catholics (Lamennais +and his friends) who had conceived the promising idea of transforming +the Church by the Liberal spirit + +[124] of the day. The Pope denounces “the absurd and erroneous maxim, or +rather insanity, that liberty of conscience should be procured and +guaranteed to every one. 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 persons, with +excessive impudence, venture to represent as an advantage for religion. +Hence comes the corruption of youth, contempt for religion and for the +most venerable laws, and a general mental change in the world—in short +the most deadly scourge of society; 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 opinion, +licence of conversation, and love of novelties. With this is connected +the liberty of publishing any writing of any kind. This is a deadly and +execrable liberty for which we cannot feel sufficient horror, though +some men dare to acclaim it noisily and enthusiastically.” A generation +later Pius IX was to astonish the world by a similar manifesto—his +Syllabus of Modern Errors (1864). Yet, notwithstanding the fundamental +antagonism between the principles of the Church and the drift of modern +civilization, the Papacy survives, + +[125] powerful and respected, in a world where the ideas which it +condemned have become the commonplace conditions of life. + +The progress of Western nations from the system of unity which prevailed +in the fifteenth, to the system of liberty which was the rule in the +nineteenth century, was slow and painful, illogical and wavering, +generally dictated by political necessities, seldom inspired by +deliberate conviction. We have seen how religious liberty has been +realized, so far as the law is concerned, under two distinct systems, +“Jurisdiction” and “Separation.” But legal toleration may coexist with +much practical intolerance, and liberty before the law is compatible +with serious disabilities of which the law cannot take account. For +instance, the expression of unorthodox opinions may exclude a man from +obtaining a secular post or hinder his advancement. The question has +been asked, which of the two systems is more favourable to the creation +of a tolerant social atmosphere? Ruffini (of whose excellent work on +Religious Liberty I have made much use in this chapter) decides in +favour of Jurisdiction. He points out that while Socinus, a true friend +of liberty of thought, contemplated this system, the Anabaptists, whose +spirit was intolerant, sought Separation. More important + +[126] is the observation that in Germany, England, and Italy, where the +most powerful Church or Churches are under the control of the State, +there is more freedom, more tolerance of opinion, than in many of the +American States where Separation prevails. A hundred years ago the +Americans showed appalling ingratitude to Thomas Paine, who had done +them eminent service in the War of Independence, simply because he +published a very unorthodox book. It is notorious that free thought is +still a serious hindrance and handicap to an American, even in most of +the Universities. This proves that Separation is not an infallible +receipt for producing tolerance. But I see no reason to suppose that +public opinion in America would be different, if either the Federal +Republic or the particular States had adopted Jurisdiction. Given legal +liberty under either system, I should say that the tolerance of public +opinion depends on social conditions and especially on the degree of +culture among the educated classes. + +From this sketch it will be seen that toleration was the outcome of new +political circumstances and necessities, brought about by the disunion +of the Church through the Reformation. But it meant that in those States +which granted toleration the opinion of + +[127] a sufficiently influential group of the governing class was ripe +for the change, and this new mental attitude was in a great measure due +to the scepticism and rationalism which were diffused by the Renaissance +movement, and which subtly and unconsciously had affected the minds of +many who were sincerely devoted to rigidly orthodox beliefs; so +effective is the force of suggestion. In the next two chapters the +advance of reason at the expense of faith will be traced through the +seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries. + +[1] Translated by Lecky. + +[2] Complete toleration was established by Penn in the Quaker Colony of +Pennsylvania in 1682. + +[3] Especially Chillingworth’s Religion of Protestants (1637), and +Jeremy Taylor’s Liberty of Prophesying (1646). + +[4] The Reformed Church consists of the followers of Calvin and Zwingli. + + +CHAPTER VI + +THE GROWTH OF RATIONALISM + +(SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES) + +DURING the last three hundred years reason has been slowly but steadily +destroying Christian mythology and exposing the pretensions of +supernatural revelation. The progress of rationalism falls naturally +into two periods. (1) In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries those +thinkers who rejected Christian theology and the book on which it relies +were mainly influenced by the inconsistencies, contradictions, and +absurdities which they discovered in the evidence, and by the moral + +[128] difficulties of the creed. Some scientific facts were known which +seemed to reflect on the accuracy of Revelation, but arguments based on +science were subsidiary. (2) In the nineteenth century the discoveries +of science in many fields bore with full force upon fabrics which had +been constructed in a naïve and ignorant age; 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 sense. + +A disinterested love of facts, without any regard to the bearing which +those facts may have on one’s hopes or fears or destiny, is a rare +quality in all ages, and it had been very rare indeed since the ancient +days of Greece and Rome. It means the scientific spirit. Now in the +seventeenth century we may say (without disrespect to a few precursors) +that the modern study of natural science began, and in the same period +we have a series of famous thinkers who were guided by a disinterested +love of truth. Of the most acute minds some reached the conclusion that +the Christian scheme of the world is irrational, and according to their +temperament some rejected it, whilst others, like the great Frenchman +Pascal, fell back upon an unreasoning act of faith. Bacon, who professed + +[129] orthodoxy, was perhaps at heart a deist, 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 stimulate. Descartes, +illustrious not only as the founder of modern metaphysics but also by +his original contributions to science, might seek to conciliate the +ecclesiastical authorities—his temper was timid— but his philosophical +method was a powerful incentive to rationalistic thought. The general +tendency of superior intellects was to exalt reason at the expense of +authority; and in England this principle was established so firmly by +Locke, that throughout the theological warfare of the eighteenth century +both parties relied on reason, and no theologian of repute assumed faith +to be a higher faculty. + +A striking illustration of the gradual encroachments of reason is the +change which was silently wrought in public opinion on the subject of +witchcraft. The famous efforts of James I to carry out the Biblical +command, “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live,” were outdone by the +zeal of the Puritans under the Commonwealth to suppress the wicked old +women who had commerce with Satan. After the Restoration, the belief in +witchcraft declined among educated people—though + +[130] some able writers maintained it—and there were few executions. The +last trial of a witch was in 1712, when some clergymen in Hertfordshire +prosecuted Jane Wenham. The jury found her guilty, but the judge, who +had summed up in her favour, was able to procure the remission of her +sentence; and the laws against witchcraft were repealed in 1735. John +Wesley said with perfect truth that to disbelieve in witchcraft is to +disbelieve in the Bible. In France and in Holland the decline of belief +and interest in this particular form of Satan’s activity was +simultaneous. In Scotland, where theology was very powerful, a woman was +burnt in 1722. 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 philosophy. + +Hobbes, who was perhaps the most brilliant English thinker of the +seventeenth century, was a freethinker and materialist. He had come +under the influence of his friend the French philosopher Gassendi, who +had revived materialism in its Epicurean shape. Yet he was a champion +not of freedom of conscience but of coercion in its most uncompromising +form. In the political theory which he expounded in Leviathan, the +sovran has autocratic power in the domain of doctrine, + +[131] as in everything else, and it is the duty of subjects to conform +to the religion which the sovran imposes. Religious persecution is thus +defended, but no independent power is left to the Church. But the +principles on which Hobbes built up his theory were rationalistic. He +separated morality from religion and identified “the true moral +philosophy” with the “true doctrine of the laws of nature.” What he +really thought of religion could be inferred from his remark that the +fanciful fear of things invisible (due to ignorance) is the natural seed +of that feeling which, in himself, a man calls religion, but, in those +who fear or worship the invisible power differently, superstition. In +the reign of Charles II Hobbes was silenced and his books were burned. + +Spinoza, the Jewish philosopher of Holland, owed a great deal to +Descartes and (in political speculation) to Hobbes, but his philosophy +meant a far wider and more open breach with orthodox opinion than either +of his masters had ventured on. He conceived ultimate reality, which he +called God, as an absolutely perfect, impersonal Being, a substance +whose nature is constituted by two “attributes”— thought and spatial +extension. When Spinoza speaks of love of God, in which he considered +happiness to consist, he means knowledge + +[132] and contemplation of the order of nature, including human nature, +which is subject to fixed, invariable laws. He rejects free-will and the +“superstition,” as he calls it, of final causes in nature. If we want to +label his philosophy, we may say that it is a form of pantheism. It has +often been described as atheism. If atheism means, as I suppose in +ordinary use it is generally taken to mean, rejection of a personal God, +Spinoza was an atheist. It should be observed that in the seventeenth +and eighteenth centuries atheist was used in the wildest way as a term +of abuse for freethinkers, and when we read of atheists (except in +careful writers) we may generally assume that the persons so stigmatized +were really deists, that is, they believed in a personal God but not in +Revelation. [1] + +Spinoza’s daring philosophy was not in harmony with the general trend of +speculation at the time, and did not exert any profound influence on +thought till a much later period. The thinker whose writings appealed +most to the men of his age and were most opportune and effective was +John Locke, who professed more or less orthodox Anglicanism. His great +contribution to philosophy is equivalent to a very powerful defence + +[133] of reason against the usurpations of authority. The object of his +Essay on the Human Understanding (1690) is to show that all knowledge is +derived from experience. He subordinated faith completely to reason. +While he accepted the Christian revelation, he held that revelation if +it contradicted the higher tribunal of reason must be rejected, and that +revelation cannot give us knowledge as certain as the knowledge which +reason gives. “He that takes away reason to make room for revelation +puts out the light of both; and does much what the same as if he would +persuade a man to put out his eyes, the better to receive the remote +light of an invisible star by a telescope.” He wrote a book to show that +the Christian revelation is not contrary to reason, and its title, The +Reasonableness of Christianity, sounds the note of all religious +controversy in England during the next hundred years. Both the orthodox +and their opponents warmly agreed that reasonableness was the only test +of the claims of revealed religion. It was under the direct influence of +Locke that Toland, an Irishman who had been converted from Roman +Catholicism, composed a sensational book, Christianity Not Mysterious +(1696). He assumes that Christianity is true and argues that there can +be no mysteries in it, because mysteries, that + +[134] is, unintelligible dogmas, cannot be accepted by reason. And if a +reasonable Deity gave a revelation, its purpose must be to enlighten, +not to puzzle. The assumption of the truth of Christianity was a mere +pretence, as an intelligent reader could not fail to see. The work was +important because it drew the logical inference from Locke’s philosophy, +and it had a wide circulation. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu met a Turkish +Effendi at Belgrade who asked her for news of Mr. Toland. + +It is characteristic of this stage of the struggle between reason and +authority that (excepting the leading French thinkers in the eighteenth +century) the rationalists, who attacked theology, generally feigned to +acknowledge the truth of the ideas which they were assailing. They +pretended that their speculations did not affect religion; they could +separate the domains of reason and of faith; they could show that +Revelation was superfluous without questioning it; they could do homage +to orthodoxy and lay down views with which orthodoxy was irreconcilable. +The errors which they exposed in the sphere of reason were ironically +allowed to be truths in the sphere of theology. The mediaeval principle +of double truth and other shifts were resorted to, in self-protection + +[135] against the tyranny of orthodoxy—though they did not always avail; +and in reading much of the rationalistic literature of this period we +have to read between the lines. Bayle is an interesting instance. + +If Locke’s philosophy, by setting authority in its place and deriving +all knowledge from experience, was a powerful aid to rationalism, his +contemporary Bayle worked in the same direction by the investigation of +history. Driven from France (see above, p. 107), he lived at Amsterdam, +where he published his Philosophical Dictionary. He was really a +freethinker, but he never dropped the disguise of orthodoxy, and this +lends a particular piquancy to his work. He takes a delight in +marshalling all the objections which heretics had made to essential +Christian dogmas. He exposed without mercy the crimes and brutalities of +David, and showed that this favourite of the Almighty was a person with +whom one would refuse to shake hands. There was a great outcry at this +unedifying candour. Bayle, in replying, adopted the attitude of +Montaigne and Pascal, and opposed faith to reason. + +The theological virtue of faith, he said, consists in believing revealed +truths simply and solely on God’s authority. If you believe in the +immortality of the soul for + +[136] philosophical reasons, you are orthodox, but you have no part in +faith. The merit of faith becomes greater, in proportion as the revealed +truth surpasses all the powers of our mind; the more incomprehensible +the truth and the more repugnant to reason, the greater is the sacrifice +we make in accepting it, the deeper our submission to God. Therefore a +merciless inventory of the objections which reason has to urge against +fundamental doctrines serves to exalt the merits of faith. + +The Dictionary was also criticized for the justice done to the moral +excellencies of persons who denied the existence of God. Bayle replies +that if he had been able to find any atheistical thinkers who lived bad +lives, he would have been delighted to dwell on their vices, but he knew +of none such. As for the criminals you meet in history, whose abominable +actions make you tremble, their impieties and blasphemies prove they +believed in a Divinity. This is a natural consequence of the theological +doctrine that the Devil, who is incapable of atheism, is the instigator +of all the sins of men. For man’s wickedness must clearly resemble that +of the Devil and must therefore be joined to a belief in God’s +existence, since the Devil is not an atheist. And is it not a proof of +the infinite wisdom of God that the worst criminals + +[137] are not atheists, and that most of the atheists whose names are +recorded have been honest men? By this arrangement Providence sets +bounds to the corruption of man; for if atheism and moral wickedness +were united in the same persons, the societies of earth would be exposed +to a fatal inundation of sin. + +There was much more in the same vein; and the upshot was, under the thin +veil of serving faith, to show that the Christian dogmas were +essentially unreasonable. + +Bayle’s work, marked by scholarship and extraordinary learning, had a +great influence in England as well as in France. It supplied weapons to +assailants of Christianity in both countries. At first the assault was +carried on with most vigour and ability by the English deists, who, +though their writings are little read now, did memorable work by their +polemic against the authority of revealed religion. + +The controversy between the deists and their orthodox opponents turned +on the question whether the Deity of natural religion —the God whose +existence, as was thought, could be proved by reason—can be identified +with the author of the Christian revelation. To the deists this seemed +impossible. The nature of the alleged revelation seemed inconsistent +with the character + +[138] of the God to whom reason pointed. The defenders of revelation, at +least all the most competent, agreed with the deists in making reason +supreme, and through this reliance on reason some of them fell into +heresies. Clarke, for instance, one of the ablest, was very unsound on +the dogma of the Trinity. It is also to be noticed that with both +sections the interest of morality was the principal motive. The orthodox +held that the revealed doctrine of future rewards and punishments is +necessary for morality; the deists, that morality depends on reason +alone, and that revelation contains a great deal that is repugnant to +moral ideals. Throughout the eighteenth century morality was the guiding +consideration with Anglican Churchmen, and religious emotion, finding no +satisfaction within the Church, was driven, as it were, outside, and +sought an outlet in the Methodism of Wesley and Whitefield. + +Spinoza had laid down the principle that Scripture must be interpreted +like any other book (1670), [2] and with the deists this principle was +fundamental. In order to avoid persecution they generally veiled their +conclusions + +[139] under sufficiently thin disguises. Hitherto the Press Licensing +Act (1662) had very effectually prevented the publication of heterodox +works, and it is from orthodox works denouncing infidel opinions that we +know how rationalism was spreading. But in 1695, the Press Law was +allowed to drop, and immediately deistic literature began to appear. +There was, however, the danger of prosecution under the Blasphemy laws. +There were three legal weapons for coercing those who attacked +Christianity: (1) The Ecclesiastical Courts had and have the power of +imprisoning for a maximum term of six months, for atheism, blasphemy, +heresy, and damnable opinions. (2) The common law as interpreted by Lord +Chief Justice Hale in 1676, when a certain Taylor was charged with +having said that religion was a cheat and blasphemed against Christ. The +accused was condemned to a fine and the pillory by the Judge, who ruled +that the Court of King’s Bench has jurisdiction in such a case, inasmuch +as blasphemous words of the kind are an offence against the laws and the +State, and to speak against Christianity is to speak in subversion of +the law, since Christianity is “parcel of the laws of England.” (3) The +statute of 1698 enacts that if any person educated in the Christian +religion “shall by + +[140] writing, printing, teaching, or advised speaking deny any one of +the persons in the Holy Trinity to be God, or shall assert or maintain +there are more gods than one, or shall deny the Christian religion to be +true, or shall deny the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testament to +be of divine authority,” is convicted, he shall for the first offence be +adjudged incapable to hold any public offices or employments, and on the +second shall lose his civil rights and be imprisoned for three years. +This Statute expressly states as its motive the fact that “many persons +have of late years openly avowed and published many blasphemous and +impious opinions contrary to the doctrine and principles of the +Christian religion.” + +As a matter of fact, most trials for blasphemy during the past two +hundred years fall under the second head. But the new Statute of 1698 +was very intimidating, and we can easily understand how it drove +heterodox writers to ambiguous disguises. One of these disguises was +allegorical interpretation of Scripture. They showed that literal +interpretation led to absurdities or to inconsistencies with the wisdom +and justice of God, and pretended to infer that allegorical +interpretation must be substituted. But they meant the reader to reject +their pretended + +[141] solution and draw a conclusion damaging to Revelation. + +Among the arguments used in favour of the truth of Revelation the +fulfilment of prophecies and the miracles of the New Testament were +conspicuous. Anthony Collins, a country gentleman who was a disciple of +Locke, published in 1733 his Discourse on the Grounds and Reasons of the +Christian Religion, in which he drastically exposed the weakness of the +evidence for fulfilment of prophecy, depending as it does on forced and +unnatural figurative interpretations. Twenty years before he had written +a Discourse of Free-thinking (in which Bayle’s influence is evident) +pleading for free discussion and the reference of all religious +questions to reason. He complained of the general intolerance which +prevailed; but the same facts which testify to intolerance testify also +to the spread of unbelief. + +Collins escaped with comparative impunity, but Thomas Woolston, a Fellow +of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, who wrote six aggressive Discourses +on the Miracles of our Saviour (1727—1730) paid the penalty for his +audacity. Deprived of his Fellowship, he was prosecuted for libel, and +sentenced to a fine of £100 and a year’s imprisonment. Unable to pay, he +died in prison. He does + +[142] not adopt the line of arguing that miracles are incredible or +impossible. He examines the chief miracles related in the Gospels, and +shows with great ability and shrewd common sense that they are absurd or +unworthy of the performer. He pointed out, as Huxley was to point out in +a controversy with Gladstone, that the miraculous driving of devils into +a herd of swine was an unwarrantable injury to somebody’s property. On +the story of the Divine blasting of the fig tree, he remarks: “What if a +yeoman of Kent should go to look for pippins in his orchard at Easter +(the supposed time that Jesus sought for these figs) and because of a +disappointment cut down his trees? What then would his neighbours make +of him? Nothing less than a laughing-stock; and if the story got into +our Publick News, he would be the jest and ridicule of mankind.” + +Or take his comment on the miracle of the Pool of Bethesda, where an +angel used to trouble the waters and the man who first entered the pool +was cured of his infirmity. “An odd and a merry way of conferring a +Divine mercy. And one would think that the angels of God did this for +their own diversion more than to do good to mankind. Just as some throw +a bone among a kennel of hounds for the pleasure of seeing them + +[143] quarrel for it, or as others cast a piece of money among a company +of boys for the sport of seeing them scramble for it, so was the pastime +of the angels here.” In dealing with the healing of the woman who +suffered from a bloody flux, he asks: “What if we had been told of the +Pope’s curing an haemorrhage like this before us, what would Protestants +have said to it? Why, ‘that a foolish, credulous, and superstitious +woman had fancied herself cured of some slight indisposition, and the +crafty Pope and his adherents, aspiring after popular applause, +magnified the presumed cure into a miracle.’ The application of such a +supposed story of a miracle wrought by the Pope is easy; and if +Infidels, Jews, and Mahometans, who have no better opinion of Jesus than +we have of the Pope, should make it, there’s no help for it.” + +Woolston professed no doubts of the inspiration of Scripture. While he +argued that it was out of the question to suppose the miracles literally +true, he pretended to believe in the fantastic theory that they were +intended allegorically as figures of Christ’s mysterious operations in +the soul of man. Origen, a not very orthodox Christian Father, had +employed the allegorical method, and Woolston quotes him in his favour. +His + +[144] vigorous criticisms vary in value, but many of them hit the nail +on the head, and the fashion of some modern critics to pass over +Woolston’s productions as unimportant because they are “ribald” or +coarse, is perfectly unjust. The pamphlets had an enormous sale, and +Woolston’s notoriety is illustrated by the anecdote of the “jolly young +woman” who met him walking abroad and accosted him with “You old rogue, +are you not hanged yet?” Mr. Woolston answered, “Good woman, I know you +not; pray what have I done to offend you?” “You have writ against my +Saviour,” she said; “what would become of my poor sinful soul if it was +not for my dear Saviour?” + +About the same time, Matthew Tindal (a Fellow of All Souls) attacked +Revelation from a more general point of view. In his Christianity as old +as the Creation (1730) he undertook to show that the Bible as a +revelation is superfluous, for it adds nothing to natural religion, +which God revealed to man from the very first by the sole light of +reason. He argues that those who defend Revealed religion by its +agreement with Natural religion, and thus set up a double government of +reason and authority, fall between the two. “It ’s an odd jumble,” he +observes, “to prove the truth of a book by the truth + +[145] of the doctrines it contains, and at the same time conclude those +doctrines to be true because contained in that book.” He goes on to +criticize the Bible in detail. In order to maintain its infallibility, +without doing violence to reason, you have, when you find irrational +statements, to torture them and depart from the literal sense. Would you +think that a Mohammedan was governed by his Koran, who on all occasions +departed from the literal sense? “Nay, would you not tell him that his +inspired book fell infinitely short of Cicero’s uninspired writings, +where there is no such occasion to recede from the letter?” + +As to chronological and physical errors, which seemed to endanger the +infallibility of the Scriptures, a bishop had met the argument by +saying, reasonably enough, that in the Bible God speaks according to the +conceptions of those to whom he speaks, and that it is not the business +of Revelation to rectify their opinions in such matters. Tindal made +this rejoinder:— + +“Is there no difference between God’s not rectifying men’s sentiments in +those matters and using himself such sentiments as needs be rectified; +or between God’s not mending men’s logic and rhetoric where ’t is +defective and using such himself; or between God’s + +[146] not contradicting vulgar notions and confirming them by speaking +according to them? Can infinite wisdom despair of gaining or keeping +people’s affections without having recourse to such mean acts?” + +He exposes with considerable effect the monstrosity of the doctrine of +exclusive salvation. Must we not consider, he asks, whether one can be +said to be sent as a Saviour of mankind, if he comes to shut Heaven’s +gate against those to whom, before he came, it was open provided they +followed the dictates of their reason? He criticizes the inconsistency +of the impartial and universal goodness of God, known to us by the light +of nature, with acts committed by Jehovah or his prophets. Take the +cases in which the order of nature is violated to punish men for crimes +of which they were not guilty, such as Elijah’s hindering rain from +falling for three years and a half. If God could break in upon the +ordinary rules of his providence to punish the innocent for the guilty, +we have no guarantee that if he deals thus with us in this life, he will +not act in the same way in the life to come, “since if the eternal rules +of justice are once broken how can we imagine any stop?” But the ideals +of holiness and justice in the Old Testament are strange indeed. The +holier men + +[147] are represented to be, the more cruel they seem and the more +addicted to cursing. How surprising to find the holy prophet Elisha +cursing in the name of the Lord little children for calling him Bald- +pate! And, what is still more surprising, two she-bears immediately +devoured forty-two little children. + +I have remarked that theologians at this time generally took the line of +basing Christianity on reason and not on faith. An interesting little +book, Christianity not founded on Argument, couched in the form of a +letter to a young gentleman at Oxford, by Henry Dodwell (Junior), +appeared in 1741, and pointed out the dangers of such confidence in +reason. It is an ironical development of the principle of Bayle, working +out the thesis that Christianity is essentially unreasonable, and that +if you want to believe, reasoning is fatal. The cultivation of faith and +reasoning produce contrary effects; the philosopher is disqualified for +Divine influences by his very progress in carnal wisdom; the Gospel must +be received with all the obsequious submission of a babe who has no +other disposition but to learn his lesson. Christ did not propose his +doctrines to investigation; he did not lay the arguments for his mission +before his disciples and give them time to consider + +[148] calmly of their force, and liberty to determine as their reason +should direct them; the apostles had no qualifications for the task, +being the most artless and illiterate persons living. Dodwell exposes +the absurdity of the Protestant position. 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 practice. The men of Rome “shall rise up in the judgment +(of all considering persons) against this generation and shall condemn +it; for they invented but the one absurdity of infallibility, and behold +a greater absurdity than infallibility is here.” + +I have still to speak of the (Third) Earl of Shaftesbury, whose style +has rescued his writings from entire neglect. His special interest was +ethics. While the valuable work of most of the heterodox writers of this +period lay in their destructive criticism of supernatural religion, they +clung, as we have seen, to what was called natural religion— the belief +in a kind and wise personal God, who created the world, governs it by +natural laws, and desires our happiness. The idea + +[149] was derived from ancient philosophers and had been revived by Lord +Herbert of Cherbury in his Latin treatise On Truth (in the reign of +James I). The deists contended that this was a sufficient basis for +morality and that the Christian inducements to good behaviour were +unnecessary. Shaftesbury in his Inquiry concerning Virtue (1699) debated +the question and argued that the scheme of heaven and hell, with the +selfish hopes and fears which they inspire, corrupts morality and that +the only worthy motive for conduct is the beauty of virtue in itself. He +does not even consider deism a necessary assumption for a moral code; he +admits that the opinion of atheists does not undermine ethics. But he +thinks that the belief in a good governor of the universe is a powerful +support to the practice of virtue. He is a thorough optimist, and is +perfectly satisfied with the admirable adaptation of means to ends, +whereby it is the function of one animal to be food for another. He +makes no attempt to reconcile the red claws and teeth of nature with the +beneficence of its powerful artist. “In the main all things are kindly +and well disposed.” The atheist might have said that he preferred to be +at the mercy of blind chance than in the hands of an autocrat who, if he +pleased Lord Shaftesbury’s sense + +[150] of order, had created flies to be devoured by spiders. But this +was an aspect of the universe which did not much trouble thinkers in the +eighteenth century. On the other hand, the character of the God of the +Old Testament roused Shaftesbury’s aversion. He attacks Scripture not +directly, but by allusion or with irony. He hints that if there is a +God, he would be less displeased with atheists than with those who +accepted him in the guise of Jehovah. As Plutarch said, “I had rather +men should say of me that there neither is nor ever was such a one as +Plutarch, than they should say ‘There was a Plutarch, an unsteady, +changeable, easily provokable and revengeful man.’ ” Shaftesbury’s +significance is that he built up a positive theory of morals, and +although it had no philosophical depth, his influence on French and +German thinkers of the eighteenth century was immense. + +In some ways perhaps the ablest of the deists, and certainly the most +scholarly, was Rev. Conyers Middleton, who remained within the Church. +He supported Christianity on grounds of utility. Even if it is an +imposture, he said, it would be wrong to destroy it. For it is +established by law and it has a long tradition behind it. Some +traditional religion is necessary and it would + +[151] be hopeless to supplant Christianity by reason. But his writings +contain effective arguments which go to undermine Revelation. The most +important was his Free Inquiry into Christian miracles (1748), which put +in a new and dangerous light an old question: At what time did the +Church cease to have the power of performing miracles? We shall see +presently how Gibbon applied Middleton’s method. + +The leading adversaries of the deists appealed, like them, to reason, +and, in appealing to reason, did much to undermine authority. The ablest +defence of the faith, Bishop Butler’s Analogy (1736), is suspected of +having raised more doubts than it appeased. This was the experience of +William Pitt the Younger, and the Analogy made James Mill (the +utilitarian) an unbeliever. The deists, argued that the unjust and cruel +God of Revelation could not be the God of nature; Butler pointed to +nature and said, There you behold cruelty and injustice. The argument +was perfectly good against the optimism of Shaftesbury, but it plainly +admitted of the conclusion—opposite to that which Butler wished to +establish—that a just and beneficent God does not exist. Butler is +driven to fall back on the sceptical argument that we are extremely +ignorant; that all things + +[152] are possible, even eternal hell fire; and that therefore the safe +and prudent course is to accept the Christian doctrine. It may be +remarked that this reasoning, with a few modifications, could be used in +favour of other religions, at Mecca or at Timbuctoo. He has, in effect, +revived the argument used by Pascal that if there is one chance in any +very large number that Christianity is true, it is a man’s interest to +be a Christian; for, if it prove false, it will do him no harm to have +believed it; if it prove true, he will be infinitely the gainer. Butler +seeks indeed to show that the chances in favour amount to a probability, +but his argument is essentially of the same intellectual and moral value +as Pascal’s. It has been pointed out that it leads by an easy logical +step from the Anglican to the Roman Church. Catholics and Protestants +(as King Henry IV of France argued) agree that a Catholic may be saved; +the Catholics assert that a Protestant will be damned; therefore the +safe course is to embrace Catholicism. [3] + +I have dwelt at some length upon some of the English deists, because, +while they occupy an important place in the history of + +[153] rationalism in England, they also supplied, along with Bayle, a +great deal of the thought which, manipulated by brilliant writers on the +other side of the Channel, captured the educated classes in France. We +are now in the age of Voltaire. He was a convinced deist. He considered +that the nature of the universe proved that it was made by a conscious +architect, he held that God was required in the interests of conduct, +and he ardently combated atheism. His great achievements were his +efficacious labour in the cause of toleration, and his systematic +warfare against superstitions. He was profoundly influenced by English +thinkers, especially Locke and Bolingbroke. This statesman had concealed +his infidelity during his lifetime except from his intimates; he had +lived long as an exile in France; and his rationalistic essays were +published (1754) after his death. Voltaire, whose literary genius +converted the work of the English thinkers into a world-force, did not +begin his campaign against Christianity till after the middle of the +century, when superstitious practices and religious persecutions were +becoming a scandal in his country. He assailed the Catholic Church in +every field with ridicule and satire. In a little work called The Tomb +of Fanaticism (written 1736, + +[154] published 1767), he begins by observing that a man who accepts his +religion (as most people do) without examining it is like an ox which +allows itself to be harnessed, and proceeds to review the difficulties +in the Bible, the rise of Christianity, and the course of Church +history; from which he concludes that every sensible man should hold the +Christian sect in horror. “Men are blind to prefer an absurd and +sanguinary creed, supported by executioners and surrounded by fiery +faggots, a creed which can only be approved by those to whom it gives +power and riches, a particular creed only accepted in a small part of +the world—to a simple and universal religion.” In the Sermon of the +Fifty and the Questions of Zapata we can see what he owed to Bayle and +English critics, but his touch is lighter and his irony more telling. +His comment on geographical mistakes in the Old Testament is: “God was +evidently not strong in geography.” Having called attention to the +“horrible crime” of Lot’s wife in looking backward, and her conversion +into a pillar of salt, he hopes that the stories of Scripture will make +us better, if they do not make us more enlightened. 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 +life. + +[155] + +His drama, Saul (1763), which the police tried to suppress, presents the +career of David, the man after God’s own heart, in all its naked horror. +The scene in which Samuel reproves Saul for not having slain Agag will +give an idea of the spirit of the piece. SAMUEL: God commands me to tell +you that he repents of having made you king. SAUL: God repents! Only +they who commit errors repent. His eternal wisdom cannot be unwise. God +cannot commit errors. SAMUEL: He can repent of having set on the throne +those who do. SAUL: Well, who does not? Tell me, what is my fault? +SAMUEL: You have pardoned a king. AGAG: What! Is the fairest of virtues +considered a crime in Judea? SAMUEL (to Agag): Silence! do not +blaspheme. (To Saul). Saul, formerly king of the Jews, did not God +command you by my mouth to destroy all the Amalekites, without sparing +women, or maidens, or children at the breast? AGAG: Your god—gave such a +command! You are mistaken, you meant to say, your devil. SAMUEL: Saul, +did you obey God? SAUL: I did not suppose such a command + +[156] was positive. I thought that goodness was the first attribute of +the Supreme Being, and that a compassionate heart could not displease +him. SAMUEL: You are mistaken, unbeliever. God reproves you, your +sceptre will pass into other hands. + +Perhaps no writer has ever roused more hatred in Christendom than +Voltaire. He was looked on as a sort of anti-Christ. That was natural; +his attacks were so tremendously effective at the time. But he has been +sometimes decried on the ground that he only demolished and made no +effort to build up where he had pulled down. This is a narrow complaint. +It might be replied that when a sewer is spreading plague in a town, we +cannot wait to remove it till we have a new system of drains, and it may +fairly be said that religion as practised in contemporary France was a +poisonous sewer. But the true answer is that knowledge, and therefore +civilization, are advanced by criticism and negation, as well as by +construction and positive discovery. When a man has the talent to attack +with effect falsehood, prejudice, and imposture, it is his duty, if +there are any social duties, to use it. + +For constructive thinking we must go to the other great leader of French +thought, + +[157] Rousseau, who contributed to the growth of freedom in a different +way. He was a deist, but his deism, unlike that of Voltaire, was +religious and emotional. He regarded Christianity with a sort of +reverent scepticism. But his thought was revolutionary and repugnant to +orthodoxy; it made against authority in every sphere; and it had an +enormous influence. The clergy perhaps dreaded his theories more than +the scoffs and negations of Voltaire. For some years he was a fugitive +on the face of the earth. Émile, his brilliant contribution to the +theory of education, appeared in 1762. It contains some remarkable pages +on religion, “the profession of faith of a Savoyard vicar,” in which the +author’s deistic faith is strongly affirmed and revelation and theology +rejected. The book was publicly burned in Paris and an order issued for +Rousseau’s arrest. Forced by his friends to flee, he was debarred from +returning to Geneva, for the government of that canton followed the +example of Paris. He sought refuge in the canton of Bern and was ordered +to quit. He then fled to the principality of Neufchâtel which belonged +to Prussia. Frederick the Great, the one really tolerant ruler of the +age, gave him protection, but he was persecuted and calumniated by the +local clergy, who but for Frederick would + +[158] have expelled him, and he went to England for a few months (1766), +then returning to France, where he was left unmolested till his death. +The religious views of Rousseau are only a minor point in his heretical +speculations. It was by his daring social and political theories that he +set the world on fire. His Social Contract in which these theories were +set forth was burned at Geneva. Though his principles will not stand +criticism for a moment, and though his doctrine worked mischief by its +extraordinary power of turning men into fanatics, yet it contributed to +progress, by helping to discredit privilege and to establish the view +that the object of a State is to secure the wellbeing of all its +members. + +Deism—whether in the semi-Christian form of Rousseau or the anti- +Christian form of Voltaire—was a house built on the sand, and thinkers +arose in France, England, and Germany to shatter its foundations. In +France, it proved to be only a half-way inn to atheism. In 1770, French +readers were startled by the appearance of Baron D’Holbach’s System of +Nature, in which God’s existence and the immortality of the soul were +denied and the world declared to be matter spontaneously moving. + +Holbach was a friend of Diderot, who had also come to reject deism. All +the leading + +[159] ideas in the revolt against the Church had a place in Diderot’s +great work, the Encyclopedia, in which a number of leading thinkers +collaborated with him. It was not merely a scientific book of reference. +It was representative of the whole movement of the enemies of faith. 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 education. To divert interest +from the dogmas of religion to the improvement of society, 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 effect. And their work influenced those who did not +abandon orthodoxy; it affected the spirit of the Church itself. Contrast +the Catholic Church in France in the eighteenth and in the nineteenth +century. Without the work of Voltaire, Rousseau, Diderot, and their +fellow-combatants, would it have been reformed? “The Christian Churches” +(I quote Lord Morley) “are assimilating as rapidly as their formulae +will permit, the new light and the more generous moral ideas and the +higher spirituality of + +[160] teachers who have abandoned all churches and who are +systematically denounced as enemies of the souls of men.” + +In England the prevalent deistic thought did not lead to the same +intellectual consequences as in France; yet Hume, the greatest English +philosopher of the century, showed that the arguments commonly adduced +for a personal God were untenable. I may first speak of his discussion +on miracles in his Essay on Miracles and in his philosophical Inquiry +concerning Human Understanding (1748). Hitherto the credibility of +miracles had not been submitted to a general examination independent of +theological assumptions. Hume, pointing out that there must be a uniform +experience against every miraculous event (otherwise it would not merit +the name of miracle), and that it will require stronger testimony to +establish a miracle than an event which is not contrary to experience, +lays down the general maxim that “no 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 +establish.” But, as a matter of fact, no testimony exists of which the +falsehood would be a prodigy. We cannot find in history any miracle +attested by a sufficient number of men of such unquestionable good + +[161] sense, education, and learning, as to secure us against all +delusion in themselves; of such undoubted integrity as to place them +beyond all suspicion of any design to deceive others; of such credit in +the eyes of mankind as to have a great deal to lose in case of their +being detected in any falsehood, 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 men. + +In the Dialogues on Natural Religion which were not published till after +his death (1776), Hume made an attack on the “argument from design,” on +which deists and Christians alike relied to prove the existence of a +Deity. The argument is that the world presents clear marks of design, +endless adaptation of means to ends, which can only be explained as due +to the deliberate plan of a powerful intelligence. Hume disputes the +inference on the ground that a mere intelligent being is not a +sufficient cause to explain the effect. For the argument must be that +the system of the material world demands as a cause a corresponding +system of interconnected ideas; but such a mental system would demand an +explanation of its existence just as much as the material world; and +thus we find ourselves + +[162] committed to an endless series of causes. But in any case, even if +the argument held, it would prove only the existence of a Deity whose +powers, though superior to man’s, might be very limited and whose +workmanship might be very imperfect. For this world may be very faulty, +compared to a superior standard. It may be the first rude experiment “of +some infant Deity who afterwards abandoned it, ashamed of his lame +performance”; or the work of some inferior Deity at which his superior +would scoff; or the production of some old superannuated Deity which +since his death has pursued an adventurous career from the first impulse +which he gave it. An argument which leaves such deities in the running +is worse than useless for the purposes of Deism or of Christianity. + +The sceptical philosophy of Hume had less influence on the general +public than Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Of the +numerous freethinking books that appeared in England in the eighteenth +century, this is the only one which is still a widely read classic. In +what a lady friend of Dr. Johnson called “the two offensive chapters” +(XV and XVI) the causes of the rise and success of Christianity are for +the first time critically investigated as a simple historical +phenomenon. Like most freethinkers of the + +[163] time Gibbon thought it well to protect himself and his work +against the possibility of prosecution by paying ironical lip-homage to +the orthodox creed. But even if there had been no such danger, he could +not have chosen a more incisive weapon for his merciless criticism of +orthodox opinion than the irony which he wielded with superb ease. +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 Author, he proceeds “with becoming +submission” to inquire into the secondary causes. 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 development. He marshals, with +ironical protests, the obvious objections to the alleged evidence for +supernatural control. He does not himself criticize Moses and the +prophets, but he reproduces the objections which were made against their +authority by “the vain science of the gnostics.” He notes that the +doctrine of immortality is omitted in the law of Moses, but this +doubtless was a mysterious dispensation of Providence. We cannot +entirely remove “the imputation of ignorance and + +[164] obscurity which has been so arrogantly cast on the first +proselytes of Christianity,” but we must “convert the occasion of +scandal into a subject of edification” and remember that “the lower we +depress the temporal condition of the first Christians, the more reason +we shall find to admire their merit and success.” + +Gibbon’s treatment of miracles from the purely historical point of view +(he owed a great deal to Middleton, see above, p. 150) was particularly +disconcerting. In the early age of Christianity “the laws of nature were +frequently suspended for the benefit of the Church. But the sages of +Greece and Rome turned aside from the awful spectacle, and, pursuing the +ordinary occupations of life and study, appeared unconscious of any +alterations in the moral or physical government of the world. Under the +reign of Tiberius the whole earth, or at least a celebrated province of +the Roman Empire, was involved in a praeternatural darkness of three +hours. Even this miraculous event, which ought to have excited the +wonder, the curiosity, and the devotion of mankind, passed without +notice in an age of science and history. It happened during the lifetime +of Seneca and the elder Pliny, who must have experienced the immediate +effects, or received the earliest intelligence, of the prodigy. Each of +these + +[165] philosophers in a laborious work has recorded all the great +phenomena of nature, earthquakes, meteors, comets, and eclipses, which +his indefatigable curiosity could collect. 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 globe.” How “shall we excuse +the supine inattention of the pagan and philosophic world to those +evidences which were presented by the hand of Omnipotence, not to their +reason, but to their senses?” + +Again, if every believer is convinced of the reality of miracles, every +reasonable man is convinced of their cessation. Yet every age bears +testimony to miracles, and the testimony seems no less respectable than +that of the preceding generation. When did they cease? How was it that +the generation which saw the last genuine miracles performed could not +distinguish them from the impostures which followed? Had men so soon +forgotten “the style of the divine artist”? The inference is that +genuine and spurious miracles are indistinguishable. But the credulity +or “softness of temper” among early believers was beneficial to the +cause of truth and religion. “In modern times, a latent and even +involuntary scepticism adheres to the most pious dispositions. Their + +[166] admission of supernatural truths is much less an active consent +than a cold and passive acquiescence. Accustomed long since to observe +and to respect the invariable order of nature, our reason, or at least +our imagination, is not sufficiently prepared to sustain the visible +action of the Deity.” + +Gibbon had not the advantage of the minute critical labours which in the +following century were expended on his sources of information, but his +masterly exposure of the conventional history of the early Church +remains in many of its most important points perfectly valid to-day. I +suspect that his artillery has produced more effect on intelligent minds +in subsequent generations than the archery of Voltaire. For his book +became indispensable as the great history of the Middle Ages; the most +orthodox could not do without it; and the poison must have often worked. + +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 religion. The +deistic attacks, on this line, were almost exhausted by the middle of +the century, and the orthodox thought that they had been satisfactorily +answered. But it was not enough to show that the revelation + +[167] is reasonable; it was necessary to prove that it is real and rests +on a solid historical basis. This was the question raised in an acute +form by the criticisms of Hume and Middleton (1748) on miracles. The +ablest answer was given by Paley in his Evidences of Christianity +(1794), the only one of the apologies of that age which is still read, +though it has ceased to have any value. Paley’s theology illustrates how +orthodox opinions are coloured, unconsciously, by the spirit of the +time. He proved (in his Natural Theology) the existence of God by the +argument from design —without taking any account of the criticisms of +Hume on that argument. Just as a watchmaker is inferred from a watch, so +a divine workman is inferred from contrivances in nature. Paley takes +his instances of such contrivance largely from the organs and +constitution of the human body. His idea of God is that of an ingenious +contriver dealing with rather obstinate material. Paley’s “God” (Mr. +Leslie Stephen remarked) “has been civilized like man; he has become +scientific and ingenious; he is superior to Watt or Priestley in +devising mechanical and chemical contrivances, and is therefore made in +the image of that generation of which Watt and Priestley were +conspicuous lights.” When a God of this kind + +[168] is established there is no difficulty about miracles, and it is on +miracles that Paley bases the case for Christianity—all other arguments +are subsidiary. And his proof of the New Testament miracles is that the +apostles who were eye-witnesses believed in them, for otherwise they +would not have acted and suffered in the cause of their new religion. +Paley’s defence is the performance of an able legal adviser to the +Almighty. + +The list of the English deistic writers of the eighteenth century closes +with one whose name is more familiar than any of his predecessors, +Thomas Paine. A Norfolk man, he migrated to America and played a leading +part in the Revolution. Then he returned to England and in 1791 +published his Rights of Man in two parts. I have been considering, +almost exclusively, freedom of thought in religion, because it may be +taken as the thermometer for freedom of thought in general. At this +period it was as dangerous to publish revolutionary opinions in politics +as in theology. Paine was an enthusiastic admirer of the American +Constitution and a supporter of the French Revolution (in which also he +was to play a part). His Rights of Man is an indictment of the +monarchical form of government, and a plea for representative democracy. +It had an enormous + +[169] sale, a cheap edition was issued, and the government, finding that +it was accessible to the poorer classes, decided to prosecute. Paine +escaped to France, and received a brilliant ovation at Calais, which +returned him as deputy to the National Convention. His trial for high +treason came on at the end of 1792. Among the passages in his book, on +which the charge was founded, were these: “All hereditary government is +in its nature tyranny.” “The time is not very distant when England will +laugh at itself for sending to Holland, Hanover, Zell, or Brunswick for +men” [meaning King William III and King George I] “at the expense of a +million a year who understood neither her laws, her language, nor her +interest, and whose capacities would scarcely have fitted them for the +office of a parish constable. If government could be trusted to such +hands, it must be some easy and simple thing indeed, and materials fit +for all the purposes may be found in every town and village in England.” +Erskine was Paine’s counsel, and he made a fine oration in defence of +freedom of speech. + +“Constraint,” he said, “is the natural parent of resistance, and a +pregnant proof that reason is not on the side of those who use it. You +must all remember, gentlemen, Lucian’s pleasant story: Jupiter and a +countryman + +[170] were walking together, conversing with great freedom and +familiarity upon the subject of heaven and earth. The countryman +listened with attention and acquiescence while Jupiter strove only to +convince him; but happening to hint a doubt, Jupiter turned hastily +around and threatened him with his thunder. ‘Ah, ha!’ says the +countryman, ‘now, Jupiter, I know that you are wrong; you are always +wrong when you appeal to your thunder.’ This is the case with me. I can +reason with the people of England, but I cannot fight against the +thunder of authority.” + +Paine was found guilty and outlawed. He soon committed a new offence by +the publication of an anti-Christian work, The Age of Reason (1794 and +1796), which he began to write in the Paris prison into which he had +been thrown by Robespierre. 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 +reserve. In the second place it was written in such a way as to reach +the masses. And, thirdly, while the criticisms on the Bible are in the +same vein as those of the earlier deists, Paine is the first to present +with force the incongruity of the Christian scheme with the conception +of the universe attained by astronomical science. + +[171] + +“Though it is not a direct article of the Christian system that this +world that we inhabit is the whole of the inhabitable globe, yet it is +so worked up therewith—from what is called the Mosaic account of the +creation, the story of Eve and the apple, and the counterpart of that +story, the death of the Son of God—that to believe otherwise (that is, +to believe that God created a plurality of worlds at least as numerous +as what we call stars) renders the Christian system of faith at once +little and ridiculous, and scatters it in the mind like feathers in the +air. The two beliefs cannot be held together in the same mind; and he +who thinks that he believes both has thought but little of either.” + +As an ardent deist, who regarded nature as God’s revelation, Paine was +able to press this argument with particular force. Referring to some of +the tales in the Old Testament, he says: “When we contemplate the +immensity of that Being who directs and governs the incomprehensible +Whole, of which the utmost ken of human sight can discover but a part, +we ought to feel shame at calling such paltry stories the Word of God.” + +The book drew a reply from Bishop Watson, one of those admirable +eighteenth-century divines, who admitted the right of private judgment +and thought that argument + +[172] should be met by argument and not by force. His reply had the +rather significant title, An Apology for the Bible. George III remarked +that he was not aware that any apology was needed for that book. It is a +weak defence, 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 Bible. + +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 publisher. Unbelief was common among the ruling class, 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 suppressed. Religion was regarded as a valuable instrument to +keep the poor in order. It is notable that of the earlier rationalists +(apart from the case of Woolston) the only one who was punished was +Peter Annet, a schoolmaster, who tried to popularize freethought and was +sentenced for diffusing “diabolical” opinions to the pillory and hard +labour (1763). Paine held that the people at large had the right of +access to all new ideas, and he wrote so as to reach the people. Hence +his book must be suppressed. + +[173] At the trial (1797) the judge placed every obstacle in the way of +the defence. The publisher was sentenced to a year’s imprisonment. + +This was not the end of Paine prosecutions. In 1811 a Third Part of the +Age of Reason appeared, and Eaton the publisher was condemned to +eighteen months’ imprisonment and to stand in the pillory once a month. +The judge, Lord Ellenborough, said in his charge, that “to deny the +truths of the book which is the foundation of our faith has never been +permitted.” The poet Shelley addressed to Lord Ellenborough a scathing +letter. “Do you think to convert Mr. Eaton to your religion by +embittering his existence? You might force him by torture to profess +your tenets, but he could not believe them except you should make them +credible, which perhaps exceeds your power. Do you think to please the +God you worship by this exhibition of your zeal? If so, the demon to +whom some nations offer human hecatombs is less barbarous than the deity +of civilized society!” In 1819 Richard Carlisle was prosecuted for +publishing the Age of Reason and sentenced to a large fine and three +years’ imprisonment. Unable to pay the fine he was kept in prison for +three years. His wife and sister, who carried on the business + +[174] and continued to sell the book, were fined and imprisoned soon +afterwards and a whole host of shop assistants. + +If his publishers suffered in England, the author himself suffered in +America where bigotry did all it could to make the last years of his +life bitter. + +The age of enlightenment began in Germany in the middle of the +eighteenth century. In most of the German States, thought was +considerably less free than in England. Under Frederick the Great’s +father, the philosopher Wolff was banished from Prussia for according to +the moral teachings of the Chinese sage Confucius a praise which, it was +thought, ought to be reserved for Christianity. He returned after the +accession of Frederick, under whose tolerant rule Prussia was an asylum +for those writers who suffered for their opinions in neighbouring +States. Frederick, indeed, held the view which was held by so many +English rationalists of the time, and is still held widely enough, that +freethought is not desirable for the multitude, because they are +incapable of understanding philosophy. Germany felt the influence of the +English Deists, of the French freethinkers, and of Spinoza; but in the +German rationalistic propaganda of this period there is nothing very +original or interesting. + +[175] The names of Edelmann and Bahrdt may be mentioned. The works of +Edelmann, who attacked the inspiration of the Bible, were burned in +various cities, and he was forced to seek Frederick’s protection at +Berlin. Bahrdt was more aggressive than any other writer of the time. +Originally a preacher, it was by slow degrees that he moved away from +the orthodox faith. His translation of the New Testament cut short his +ecclesiastical career. His last years were spent as an inn-keeper. His +writings, for instance his popular Letters on the Bible, must have had a +considerable effect, if we may judge by the hatred which he excited +among theologians. + +It was not, however, in direct rationalistic propaganda, but in +literature and philosophy, that the German enlightenment of this century +expressed itself. The most illustrious men of letters, Goethe (who was +profoundly influenced by Spinoza) and Schiller, stood outside the +Churches, and the effect of their writings and of the whole literary +movement of the time made for the freest treatment of human experience. + +One German thinker shook the world—the philosopher Kant. His Critic of +Pure Reason demonstrated that when we attempt to prove by the fight of +the intellect the existence of + +[176] God and the immortality of the Soul, we fall helplessly into +contradictions. His destructive criticism of the argument from design +and all natural theology was more complete than that of Hume; and his +philosophy, different though his system was, issued in the same +practical result as that of Locke, to confine knowledge to experience. +It is true that afterwards, in the interest of ethics, he tried to +smuggle in by a back-door the Deity whom he had turned out by the front +gate, but the attempt was not a success. 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 authority. + +[1] For the sake of simplicity I use “deist” in this sense throughout, +though “theist” is now the usual term. + +[2] Spinoza’s Theological Political Treatise, which deals with the +interpretation of Scripture, was translated into English in 1689. + +[3] See Benn, Rationalism in the Nineteenth Century, vol. i, p. 138 +seq., for a good exposure of the fallacies and sophistries of Butler. + + +CHAPTER VII + +THE PROGRESS OF RATIONALISM + +(NINETEENTH CENTURY) + +MODERN science, heralded by the researches of Copernicus, was founded in +the seventeenth century, which saw the demonstration of the Copernican +theory, the discovery of gravitation, the discovery of the circulation +of the blood, and the foundation + +[177] of modern chemistry and physics. The true nature of comets was +ascertained, and they ceased to be regarded as signs of heavenly wrath. +But several generations were to pass before science became, in +Protestant countries, an involuntary arch-enemy of theology. Till the +nineteenth century, it was only in minor points, such as the movement of +the earth, that proved scientific facts seemed to conflict with +Scripture, and it was easy enough to explain away these inconsistencies +by a new interpretation of the sacred texts. Yet remarkable facts were +accumulating which, though not explained by science, seemed to menace +the credibility of Biblical history. If the story of Noah’s Ark and the +Flood is true, how was it that beasts unable to swim or fly inhabit +America and the islands of the Ocean? And what about the new species +which were constantly being found in the New World and did not exist in +the Old? Where did the kangaroos of Australia drop from? The only +explanation compatible with received theology seemed to be the +hypothesis of innumerable new acts of creation, later than the Flood. It +was in the field of natural history that scientific men of the +eighteenth century suffered most from the coercion of authority. +Linnaeus felt it in Sweden, Buffon + +[178] in France. Buffon was compelled to retract hypotheses which he put +forward about the formation of the earth in his Natural History (1749), +and to state that he believed implicitly in the Bible account of +Creation. + +At the beginning of the nineteenth century Laplace worked out the +mechanics of the universe, on the nebular hypothesis. His results +dispensed, as he said to Napoleon, with the hypothesis of God, and were +duly denounced. His theory involved a long physical process before the +earth and solar system came to be formed; but this was not fatal, for a +little ingenuity might preserve the credit of the first chapter of +Genesis. Geology was to prove a more formidable enemy to the Biblical +story of the Creation and the Deluge. The theory of a French naturalist +(Cuvier) that the earth had repeatedly experienced catastrophes, each of +which necessitated a new creative act, helped for a time to save the +belief in divine intervention, and Lyell, in his Principles of Geology +(1830), while he undermined the assumption of catastrophes, by showing +that the earth’s history could be explained by the ordinary processes +which we still see in operation, yet held fast to successive acts of +creation. It was not till 1863 that he presented fully, in his Antiquity +of Man, the + +[179] evidence which showed that the human race had inhabited the earth +for a far longer period than could be reconciled with the record of +Scripture. 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 +animals, by explaining the word “day” in the Jewish story of creation to +signify some long period of time. But this way out was impossible in the +case of the creation of man, for the sacred chronology is quite +definite. An English divine of the seventeenth century ingeniously +calculated that man was created by the Trinity on October 23, B.C. 4004, +at 9 o’clock in the morning, and no reckoning of the Bible dates could +put the event much further back. Other evidence reinforced the +conclusions from geology, but geology alone was sufficient to damage +irretrievably the historical truth of the Jewish legend of Creation. The +only means of rescuing it was to suppose that God had created misleading +evidence for the express purpose of deceiving man. + +Geology shook the infallibility of the Bible, but left the creation of +some prehistoric Adam and Eve a still admissible hypothesis. Here +however zoology stepped in, and pronounced upon the origin of man. It +was an old conjecture that the higher forms of life, including + +[180] man, had developed out of lower forms, and advanced thinkers had +been reaching the conclusion that the universe, as we find it, is the +result of a continuous process, unbroken by supernatural interference, +and explicable by uniform natural laws. But while the reign of law in +the world of non-living matter seemed to be established, the world of +life could be considered a field in which the theory of divine +intervention is perfectly valid, so long as science failed to assign +satisfactory causes for the origination of the various kinds of animals +and plants. The publication of Darwin’s Origin of Species in 1859 is, +therefore, a landmark not only in science but in the war between science +and theology. When this book appeared, Bishop Wilberforce truly said +that “the principle of natural selection is incompatible with the word +of God,” and theologians in Germany and France as well as in England +cried aloud against the threatened dethronement of the Deity. The +appearance of the Descent of Man (1871), in which the evidence for the +pedigree of the human race from lower animals was marshalled with +masterly force, renewed the outcry. The Bible said that God created man +in his own image, Darwin said that man descended from an ape. The +feelings of the orthodox world may be + +[181] expressed in the words of Mr. Gladstone: “Upon the grounds of what +is called evolution God is relieved of the labour of creation, and in +the name of unchangeable laws is discharged from governing the world.” +It was a discharge which, as Spencer observed, had begun with Newton’s +discovery of gravitation. If Darwin did not, as is now recognized, +supply a complete explanation of the origin of species, 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 world. Another nail was driven into the coffin of +Creation and the Fall of Adam, and the doctrine of redemption could only +be rescued by making it independent of the Jewish fable on which it was +founded. + +Darwinism, as it is called, has had the larger effect of discrediting +the theory of the adaptation of means to ends in nature by an external +and infinitely powerful intelligence. The inadequacy of the argument +from design, as a proof of God’s existence, had been shown by the logic +of Hume and Kant; but the observation of the life-processes of nature +shows that the very analogy between nature and art, on which the +argument depends, breaks down. The impropriety of the analogy has been + +[182] pointed out, in a telling way, by a German writer (Lange). If a +man wants to shoot a hare which is in a certain field, he does not +procure thousands of guns, surround the field, and cause them all to be +fired off; or if he wants a house to live in, he does not build a whole +town and abandon to weather and decay all the houses but one. If he did +either of these things we should say he was mad or amazingly +unintelligent; his actions certainly would not be held to indicate a +powerful mind, expert in adapting means to ends. But these are the sort +of things that nature does. Her wastefulness in the propagation of life +is reckless. For the production of one life she sacrifices innumerable +germs. The “end” is achieved in one case out of thousands; the rule is +destruction and failure. If intelligence had anything to do with this +bungling process, it would be an intelligence infinitely low. And the +finished product, if regarded as a work of design, points to +incompetence in the designer. Take the human eye. An illustrious man of +science (Helmholtz) said, “If an optician sent it to me as an +instrument, I should send it back with reproaches for the carelessness +of his work and demand the return of my money. Darwin showed how the +phenomena might be explained as events not brought about + +[183] intentionally, but due to exceptional concurrences of +circumstances. + +The phenomena of nature are a system of things which co-exist and follow +each other according to invariable laws. This deadly proposition was +asserted early in the nineteenth century to be an axiom of science. It +was formulated by Mill (in his System of Logic, 1843) as the foundation +on which scientific induction rests. It means that at any moment the +state of the whole universe is the effect of its state at the preceding +moment; the casual sequence between two successive states is not broken +by any arbitrary interference suppressing or altering the relation +between cause and effect. Some ancient Greek philosophers were convinced +of this principle; the work done by modern science in every field seems +to be a verification of it. But it need not be stated in such an +absolute form. Recently, scientific men have been inclined to express +the axiom with more reserve and less dogmatically. They are prepared to +recognize that it is simply a postulate without which the scientific +comprehension of the universe would be impossible, 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 experience. But they are +not + +[184] readier to admit exceptions to this uniformity than their +predecessors were to admit exceptions to the law of causation. + +The idea of development has been applied not only to nature, but to the +mind of man and to the history of civilization, including thought and +religion. The first who attempted to apply this idea methodically to the +whole universe was not a student of natural science, but a +metaphysician, Hegel. His extremely difficult philosophy had such a wide +influence on thought that a few words must be said about its tendency. +He conceived the whole of existence as what he called the Absolute Idea, +which is not in space or time and is compelled by the laws of its being +to manifest itself in the process of the world, first externalizing +itself in nature, and then becoming conscious of itself as spirit in +individual minds. His system is hence called Absolute Idealism. The +attraction which it exercised has probably been in great measure due to +the fact that it was in harmony with nineteenth-century thought, in so +far as it conceived the process of the world, both in nature and spirit, +as a necessary development from lower to higher stages. In this respect +indeed Hegel’s vision was limited. He treats the process as if it were +practically complete already, and does not take into account + +[185] the probability of further development in the future, to which +other thinkers of his own time were turning their attention. But what +concerns us here is that, while Hegel’s system is “idealistic,” finding +the explanation of the universe in thought and not in matter, it tended +as powerfully as any materialistic system to subvert orthodox beliefs. +It is true that some have claimed it as supporting Christianity. A +certain colour is lent to this by Hegel’s view that the Christian creed, +as the highest religion, contains doctrines which express imperfectly +some of the ideas of the highest philosophy—his own; along with the fact +that he sometimes speaks of the Absolute Idea as if it were a person, +though personality would be a limitation inconsistent with his +conception of it. But it is sufficient to observe that, whatever value +be assigned to Christianity, he regarded it from the superior standpoint +of a purely intellectual philosophy, not as a special revelation of +truth, but as a certain approximation to the truth which philosophy +alone can reach; 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 religion. His influence in Germany, Russia, and elsewhere has +entirely made for highly unorthodox thought. + +[186] + +Hegel was not aggressive, he was superior. His French contemporary, +Comte, who also thought out a comprehensive system, aggressively and +explicitly rejected theology as an obsolete way of explaining the +universe. He rejected metaphysics likewise, and all that Hegel stood +for, as equally useless, on the ground that metaphysicians explain +nothing, but merely describe phenomena in abstract terms, and that +questions about the origin of the world and why it exists are quite +beyond the reach of reason. Both theology and metaphysics are superseded +by science—the investigation of causes and effects and coexistences; and +the future progress of society will be guided by the scientific view of +the world which confines itself to the positive data of experience. +Comte was convinced that religion is a social necessity, and, to supply +the place of the theological religions which he pronounced to be doomed, +he invented a new religion—the religion of Humanity. It differs from the +great religions of the world in having no supernatural or non-rational +articles of belief, and on that account he had few adherents. But the +“Positive Philosophy” of Comte has exercised great influence, not least +in England, where its principles have been promulgated especially by Mr. +Frederic Harrison, who in the latter + +[187] half of the nineteenth century has been one of the most +indefatigable workers in the cause of reason against authority. + +Another comprehensive system was worked out by an Englishman, Herbert +Spencer. Like Comte’s, it was based on science, and attempts to show +how, starting with a nebular universe, the whole knowable world, +psychical and social as well as physical, can be deduced. His Synthetic +Philosophy perhaps did more than anything else to make the idea of +evolution familiar in England. + +I must mention one other modern explanation of the world, that of +Haeckel, the zoologist, professor at Jena, who may be called the prophet +of evolution. His Creation of Man (1868) covered the same ground as +Darwin’s Descent, had an enormous circulation, and was translated, I +believe, into fourteen languages. His World-riddles (1899) enjoys the +same popularity. He has taught, like Spencer, that the principle of +evolution applies not only to the history of nature, but also to human +civilization and human thought. He differs from Spencer and Comte in not +assuming any unknowable reality behind natural phenomena. His +adversaries commonly stigmatize his theory as materialism, but this is a +mistake. Like Spinoza he recognizes matter and mind, body and thought, +as + +[188] two inseparable sides of ultimate reality, which he calls God; in +fact, he identifies his philosophy with that of Spinoza. And he +logically proceeds to conceive material atoms as thinking. His idea of +the physical world is based on the old mechanical conception of matter, +which in recent years has been discredited. But Haeckel’s Monism, [1] as +he called his doctrine, has lately been reshaped and in its new form +promises to exercise wide influence on thoughtful people in Germany. I +will return later to this Monistic movement. + +It had been a fundamental principle of Comte that human actions and +human history are as strictly subject as nature is, to the law of +causation. Two psychological works appeared in England in 1855 (Bain’s +Senses and Intellect and Spencer’s Principles of Psychology), which +taught that our volitions are completely determined, being the +inevitable consequences of chains of causes and effects. But a far +deeper impression was produced two years later by the first volume of +Buckle’s History of Civilization in England (a work of much less +permanent value), which attempted to apply this principle to history. +Men act in consequence of motives; their motives are the results of +preceding facts; so that “if we were acquainted with the whole of the +antecedents + +[189] and with all the laws of their movements, we could with unerring +certainty predict the whole of their immediate results.” Thus history is +an unbroken chain of causes and effects. Chance is excluded; it is a +mere name for the defects of our knowledge. Mysterious and providential +interference is excluded. Buckle maintained God’s existence, but +eliminated him from history; and his book dealt a resounding blow at the +theory that human actions are not submitted to the law of universal +causation. + +The science of anthropology has in recent years aroused wide interest. +Inquiries into the condition of early man have shown (independently of +Darwinism) that there is nothing to be said for the view that he fell +from a higher to a lower state; the evidence points to a slow rise from +mere animality. The origin of religious beliefs has been investigated, +with results disquieting for orthodoxy. The researches of students of +anthropology and comparative religion—such as Tylor, Robertson Smith, +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 religions. That the mystery of the +Eucharist comes from the common savage rite of eating a dead god, + +[190] that the death and resurrection of a god in human form, which form +the central fact of Christianity, and the miraculous birth of a Saviour +are features which it has in common with pagan religions—such +conclusions are supremely unedifying. It may be said that in themselves +they are not fatal to the claims of the current theology. It may be +held, for instance, that, as part of Christian revelation, such ideas +acquired a new significance and that God wisely availed himself of +familiar beliefs—which, though false and leading to cruel practices, he +himself had inspired and permitted—in order to construct a scheme of +redemption which should appeal to the prejudices of man. Some minds may +find satisfaction in this sort of explanation, 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 eyes. + +The general result of the advance of science, including anthropology, +has been to create a coherent view of the world, in which the Christian +scheme, based on the notions of an unscientific age and on the arrogant +assumption that the universe was made for man, has no suitable or +reasonable place. If Paine felt this a hundred years ago, it is far + +[191] more apparent now. All minds however are not equally impressed +with this incongruity. There are many who will admit the proofs +furnished by science that the Biblical record as to the antiquity of man +is false, but are not affected by the incongruity between the scientific +and theological conceptions of the world. + +For such minds science has only succeeded in carrying some +entrenchments, which may be abandoned without much harm. It has made the +old orthodox view of the infallibility of the Bible untenable, and upset +the doctrine of the Creation and Fall. But it would still be possible +for Christianity to maintain the supernatural claim, by modifying its +theory of the authority of the Bible and revising its theory of +redemption, if the evidence of natural science were the only group of +facts with which it collided. It might be argued that the law of +universal causation is a hypothesis inferred from experience, but that +experience includes the testimonies of history and must therefore take +account of the clear evidence of miraculous occurrences in the New +Testament (evidence which is valid, even if that book was not inspired). +Thus, a stand could be taken against the generalization of science on +the firm ground of historical fact. That solid ground, however, has +given + +[192] way, undermined by historical criticism, which has been more +deadly than the common-sense criticism of the eighteenth century. + +The methodical examination of the records contained in the Bible, +dealing with them as if they were purely human documents, is the work of +the nineteenth century. Something, indeed, had already been done. +Spinoza, for instance (above, p. 138), and Simon, a Frenchman whose +books were burnt, were pioneers; and the modern criticism of the Old +Testament was begun by Astruc (professor of medicine at Paris), who +discovered an important clue for distinguishing different documents used +by the compiler of the Book of Genesis (1753). His German contemporary, +Reimarus, a student of the New Testament, anticipated the modern +conclusion that Jesus had no intention of founding a new religion, and +saw that the Gospel of St. John presents a different figure from the +Jesus of the other evangelists. + +But in the nineteenth century the methods of criticism, applied by +German scholars to Homer and to the records of early Roman history, were +extended to the investigation of the Bible. The work has been done +principally in Germany. The old tradition that the Pentateuch was +written by Moses has been completely discredited. It is now + +[193] agreed unanimously by all who have studied the facts that the +Pentateuch was put together from a number of different documents of +different ages, the earliest dating from the ninth, the last from the +fifth, century B.C.; and there are later minor additions. An important, +though undesigned, contribution was made to this exposure by an +Englishman, Colenso, Bishop of Natal. It had been held that the oldest +of the documents which had been distinguished was a narrative which +begins in Genesis, Chapter I, 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 century. In 1862 +Colenso published the first part of his Pentateuch and the Book of +Joshua Critically Examined. 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 Flood, +“that all the beasts and birds and creeping things upon the earth, large +and small, from hot countries and cold, came thus by pairs and entered +into the ark with Noah? And did Noah gather food for them all, for the +beasts and birds of prey as well as the rest?” The Bishop then proceeded +to test the accuracy of the inspired books by examining + +[194] the numerical statements which they contain. The results were +fatal to them as historical records. Quite apart from miracles (the +possibility of which he did not question), he showed that the whole +story of the sojourn of the Israelites in Egypt and the wilderness was +full of absurdities and impossibilities. Colenso’s book raised a storm +of indignation in England—he was known as “the wicked bishop”; but on +the Continent its reception was very different. The portions of the +Pentateuch and Joshua, which he proved to be unhistorical, belonged +precisely to the narrative which had caused perplexity; and critics were +led by his results to conclude that, like the Levitical laws with which +it was connected, it was as late as the fifth century. + +One of the most striking results of the researches on the Old Testament +has been that the Jews themselves handled their traditions freely. Each +of the successive documents, which were afterwards woven together, was +written by men who adopted a perfectly free attitude towards the older +traditions, and having no suspicion that they were of divine origin did +not bow down before their authority. It was reserved for the Christians +to invest with infallible authority the whole indiscriminate lump of +these Jewish documents, inconsistent not + +[195] only in their tendencies (since they reflect the spirit of +different ages), but also in some respects in substance. The examination +of most of the other Old Testament books has led to conclusions likewise +adverse to the orthodox view of their origin and character. New +knowledge on many points has been derived from the Babylonian literature +which has been recovered during the last half century. One of the +earliest (1872) and most sensational discoveries was that the Jews got +their story of the Flood from Babylonian mythology. + +Modern criticism of the New Testament began with the stimulating works +of Baur and of Strauss, whose Life of Jesus (1835), in which the +supernatural was entirely rejected, had an immense success and caused +furious controversy. Both these rationalists were influenced by Hegel. +At the same time a classical scholar, Lachmann, laid the foundations of +the criticism of the Greek text of the New Testament, by issuing the +first scientific edition. Since then seventy years of work have led to +some certain results which are generally accepted. + +In the first place, 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 + +[196] testimony to the facts which are related. 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 +testimony. In the second place, it is allowed that the first Gospel is +not the oldest and that the apostle Matthew was not its author. There is +also a pretty general agreement that Mark’s book is the oldest. The +authorship of the fourth Gospel, which like the first was supposed to +have been written by an eye-witness, is still contested, 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 +biographers. + +The result is that it can no longer be said that for the life of Jesus +there is the evidence of eye-witnesses. The oldest account (Mark) was +composed at the earliest some thirty years after the Crucifixion. If +such evidence is considered good enough to establish the supernatural +events described in that document, there are few alleged supernatural +occurrences which we shall not be equally entitled to believe. As a +matter of fact, an interval of thirty years makes little difference, for +we know that legends require little time to grow. In the East, you will +hear of miracles which happened the day before + +[197] yesterday. The birth of religions is always enveloped in legend, +and the miraculous thing would be, as M. Salomon Reinach has observed, +if the story of the birth of Christianity were pure history. + +Another disturbing result of unprejudiced examination of the first three +Gospels is that, if you take the recorded words of Jesus to be genuine +tradition, he had no idea of founding a new religion. And he was fully +persuaded that the end of the world was at hand. At present, the chief +problem of advanced criticism seems to be whether his entire teaching +was not determined by this delusive conviction. + +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 authority, +the doctrine of immortality. Physiology and psychology have indeed +emphasized the difficulties of conceiving a thinking mind without a +nervous system. Some are sanguine enough to think that, by scientific +examination of psychical phenomena, we may possibly come to know whether +the “spirits” of dead people exist. If the existence of such a world of +spirits were ever established, it would possibly be the greatest blow +ever sustained by Christianity. For the great appeal of this and of some +other religions + +[198] lies in the promise of a future life of which otherwise we should +have no knowledge. If existence after death were proved and became a +scientific fact like the law of gravitation, a revealed religion might +lose its power. For the whole point of a revealed religion is that it is +not based on scientific facts. So far as I know, those who are +convinced, by spiritualistic experiments, that they have actual converse +with spirits of the dead, and for whom this converse, however delusive +the evidence may be, is a fact proved by experience, cease to feel any +interest in religion. They possess knowledge and can dispense with +faith. + +The havoc which science and historical criticism have wrought among +orthodox beliefs during the last hundred years was not tamely submitted +to, and controversy was not the only weapon employed. Strauss was +deprived of his professorship at Tübingen, and his career was ruined. +Renan, whose sensational Life of Jesus also rejected the supernatural, +lost his chair in the Collège de France. Büchner was driven from +Tübingen (1855) for his book on Force and Matter, which, appealing to +the general public, set forth the futility of supernatural explanations +of the universe. An attempt was made to chase Haeckel from Jena. In +recent years, + +[199] a French Catholic, the Abbé Loisy, has made notable contributions +to the study of the New Testament and he was rewarded by major +excommunication in 1907. + +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 +century. The Modernists do not form an organized party; they have no +programme. They are devoted to the Church, to its traditions and +associations, but they look on Christianity as a religion which has +developed, and whose vitality depends upon its continuing to develop. +They are bent on reinterpreting the dogmas in the light of modern +science and criticism. The idea of development had already been applied +by Cardinal Newman to Catholic theology. He taught that it was a +natural, and therefore legitimate, development of the primitive creed. +But he did not draw the conclusion which the Modernists draw that if +Catholicism is not to lose its power of growth and die, it must +assimilate some of the results of modern thought. This is what they are +attempting to do for it. + +Pope Pius X has made every effort to suppress the Modernists. In 1907 +(July) he + +[200] issued a decree denouncing various results of modern Biblical +criticism which are defended in Loisy’s works. The two fundamental +propositions that “the organic constitution of the Church is not +immutable, but that Christian society is subject, like every human +society, to a perpetual evolution,” and that “the 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 +arrived”—both of which might be deduced from Newman’s writings—are +condemned. Three months later the Pope issued a long Encyclical letter, +containing an elaborate study of Modernist opinions, and ordaining +various measures for stamping out the evil. No Modernist would admit +that this document represents his views fairly. Yet some of the remarks +seem very much to the point. Take one of their books: “one page might be +signed by a Catholic; turn over and you think you are reading the work +of a rationalist. In writing history, they make no mention of Christ’s +divinity; in the pulpit, they proclaim it loudly.” + +A plain man may be puzzled by these attempts to retain the letter of old +dogmas emptied of their old meaning, and may think it natural enough +that the head of the Catholic + +[201] Church should take a clear and definite stand against the new +learning which, seems fatal to its fundamental doctrines. For many years +past, liberal divines in the Protestant Churches have been doing what +the Modernists are doing. The phrase “Divinity of Christ” is used, but +is interpreted so as not to imply a miraculous birth. The Resurrection +is preached, but is interpreted so as not to imply a miraculous bodily +resurrection. The Bible is said to be an inspired book, but inspiration +is used in a vague sense, much as when one says that Plato was inspired; +and the vagueness of this new idea of inspiration is even put forward as +a merit. Between the extreme views which discard the miraculous +altogether, and the old orthodoxy, there are many gradations of belief. +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 clergy. +Probably every leading ecclesiastic would give a different answer. + +The rise of rationalism within the English Church is interesting and +illustrates the relations between Church and State. + +The pietistic movement known as Evangelicalism, which Wilberforce’s +Practical View of Christianity (1797) did much to make popular, +introduced the spirit of Methodism + +[202] within the Anglican Church, and soon put an end to the delightful +type of eighteenth-century divine, who, as Gibbon says, “subscribed with +a sigh or a smile” the articles of faith. The rigorous taboo of the +Sabbath was revived, the theatre was denounced, the corruption of human +nature became the dominant theme, and the Bible more a fetish than ever. +The success of this religious “reaction,” as it is called, was aided, +though not caused, by the common belief that the French Revolution had +been mainly due to infidelity; the Revolution was taken for an object +lesson showing the value of religion for keeping the people in order. +There was also a religious “reaction” in France itself. But in both +cases this means not that free thought was less prevalent, but that the +beliefs of the majority were more aggressive and had powerful spokesmen, +while the eighteenth-century form of rationalism fell out of fashion. A +new form of rationalism, which sought to interpret orthodoxy in such a +liberal way as to reconcile it with philosophy, was represented by +Coleridge, who was influenced by German philosophers. Coleridge was a +supporter of the Church, and he contributed to the foundation of a +school of liberal theology which was to make itself felt after the +middle of the century. + +[203] Newman, the most eminent of the new High Church party, said that +he indulged in a liberty of speculation which no Christian could +tolerate. The High Church movement which marked the second quarter of +the century was as hostile as Evangelicalism to the freedom of religious +thought. + +The change came after the middle of the century, when the effects of the +philosophies of Hegel and Comte, and of foreign Biblical criticism, +began to make themselves felt within the English Church. Two remarkable +freethinking books appeared at this period which were widely read, F. W. +Newman’s Phases of Faith and W. R. Greg’s Creed of Christendom (both in +1850). Newman (brother of Cardinal Newman) entirely broke with +Christianity, and in his book he describes the mental process by which +he came to abandon the beliefs he had once held. Perhaps the most +interesting point he makes is the deficiency of the New Testament +teaching as a system of morals. Greg was a Unitarian. He rejected dogma +and inspiration, but he regarded himself as a Christian. Sir J. F. +Stephen wittily described his position as that of a disciple “who had +heard the Sermon on the Mount, whose attention had not been called to +the Miracles, and who died before the Resurrection.” + +[204] + +There were a few English clergymen (chiefly Oxford men) who were +interested in German criticism and leaned to broad views, which to the +Evangelicals and High Churchmen seemed indistinguishable from +infidelity. We may call them the Broad Church—though the name did not +come in till later. In 1855 Jowett (afterwards Master of Balliol) +published an edition of some of St. Paul’s Epistles, in which he showed +the cloven hoof. It contained an annihilating criticism of the doctrine +of the Atonement, an explicit rejection of original sin, and a +rationalistic discussion of the question of God’s existence. But this +and some other unorthodox works of liberal theologians attracted little +public attention, though their authors had to endure petty persecution. +Five years later, Jowett and some other members of the small liberal +group decided to defy the “abominable system of terrorism which prevents +the statement of the plainest fact,” and issued a volume of Essays and +Reviews (1860) by seven writers of whom six were clergymen. The views +advocated in these essays seem mild enough to-day, and many of them +would be accepted by most well-educated clergymen, but at the time they +produced a very painful impression. The authors were called the “Seven +against Christ.” It was + +[205] laid down that the Bible is to be interpreted like any other book. +“It is not a useful lesson for the young student to apply to Scripture +principles which he would hesitate to apply to other books; to make +formal reconcilements of discrepancies which he would not think of +reconciling in ordinary history; to divide simple words into double +meanings; to adopt the fancies or conjectures of Fathers and +Commentators as real knowledge.” It is suggested that the Hebrew +prophecies do not contain the element of prediction. Contradictory +accounts, or accounts which can only be reconciled by conjecture, cannot +possibly have been dictated by God. The discrepancies between the +genealogies of Jesus in Matthew and Luke, or between the accounts of the +Resurrection, can be attributed “neither to any defect in our capacities +nor to any reasonable presumption of a hidden wise design, nor to any +partial spiritual endowments in the narrators.” The orthodox arguments +which lay stress on the assertion of witnesses as the supreme evidence +of fact, in support of miraculous occurrences, 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 order. +It is argued that, under the Thirty-nine + +[206] Articles, it is permissible to accept as “parable or poetry or +legend” such stories as that of an ass speaking with a man’s voice, of +waters standing in a solid heap, of witches and a variety of +apparitions, and to judge for ourselves of such questions as the +personality of Satan or the primeval institution of the Sabbath. The +whole spirit of this volume is perhaps expressed in the observation that +if any one perceives “to how great an extent the origin itself of +Christianity rests upon probable evidence, his principle will relieve +him from many difficulties which might otherwise be very disturbing. For +relations which may repose on doubtful grounds as matters of history, +and, as history, be incapable of being ascertained or verified, may yet +be equally suggestive of true ideas with facts absolutely certain”—that +is, they may have a spiritual significance although they are +historically false. + +The most daring Essay was the Rev. Baden Powell’s Study of the Evidences +of Christianity. He was a believer in evolution, who accepted Darwinism, +and considered miracles impossible. The volume was denounced by the +Bishops, and in 1862 two of the contributors, who were beneficed +clergymen and thus open to a legal attack, were prosecuted and tried in +the Ecclesiastical Court. Condemned on + +[207] certain points, acquitted on others, they were sentenced to be +suspended for a year, and they appealed to the Privy Council. Lord +Westbury (Lord Chancellor) pronounced the judgment of the Judicial +Committee of the Council, which reversed the decision of the +Ecclesiastical Court. The Committee held, among other things, that it is +not essential for a clergyman to believe in eternal punishment. This +prompted the following epitaph on Lord Westbury: “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 +damnation.” + +This was a great triumph for the Broad Church party, and it is an +interesting event in the history of the English State-Church. Laymen +decided (overruling the opinion of the Archbishops of Canterbury and +York) what theological doctrines are and are not binding on a clergyman, +and granted within the Church a liberty of opinion which the majority of +the Church’s representatives regarded as pernicious. This liberty was +formally established in 1865 by an Act of Parliament, which altered the +form in which clergymen were required to subscribe the Thirty-nine +Articles. The episode of Essays and Reviews is a landmark in the history +of religious thought in England. + +[208] + +The liberal views of the Broad Churchmen and their attitude to the Bible +gradually produced some effect upon those who differed most from them; +and nowadays there is probably no one who would not admit, at least, +that such a passage as Genesis, Chapter XIX, might have been composed +without the direct inspiration of the Deity. + +During the next few years orthodox public opinion was shocked or +disturbed by the appearance of several remarkable books which +criticized, ignored, or defied authority—Lyell’s Antiquity of Man, +Seeley’s Ecce Homo (which the pious Lord Shaftesbury said was “vomited +from the jaws of hell”), Lecky’s History of Rationalism. And a new poet +of liberty arose who did not fear to sound the loudest notes of defiance +against all that authority held sacred. All the great poets of the +nineteenth century were more or less unorthodox; Wordsworth in the years +of his highest inspiration was a pantheist; and the greatest of all, +Shelley, was a declared atheist. In fearless utterance, in unfaltering +zeal against the tyranny of Gods and Governments, Swinburne was like +Shelley. His drama Atalanta in Calydon (1865), even though a poet is +strictly not answerable for what the persons in his drama say, yet with +its denunciation of “the supreme evil, God,” heralded the coming + +[209] of a new champion who would defy the fortresses of authority. 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 +world. + +But the most intense and exciting period of literary warfare against +orthodoxy in England began about 1869, and lasted for about a dozen +years, during which enemies of dogma, of all complexions, were less +reticent and more aggressive than at any other time in the century. Lord +Morley has observed that “the force of speculative literature always +hangs on practical opportuneness,” and this remark is illustrated by the +rationalistic literature of the seventies. It was a time of hope and +fear, of progress and danger. Secularists and rationalists were +encouraged by the Disestablishment of the Church in Ireland (1869), by +the Act which allowed atheists to give evidence in a court of justice +(1869), by the abolition of religious tests at all the universities (a +measure frequently attempted in vain) in 1871. On the other hand, the +Education Act of 1870, progressive though it was, disappointed the +advocates of secular education, and was an unwelcome sign of the +strength of ecclesiastical influence. Then there was the general alarm +felt in Europe by all outside the Roman Church, + +[210] and by some within it, at the decree of the infallibility of the +Pope (by the Vatican Council 1869–70), and an Englishman (Cardinal +Manning) was one of the most active spirits in bringing about this +decree. It would perhaps have caused less alarm if the Pope’s +denunciation of modern errors had not been fresh in men’s memories. At +the end of 1864 he startled the world by issuing a Syllabus “embracing +the principal errors of our age.” Among these were the propositions, +that every man is free to adopt and profess the religion he considers +true, according to the light of reason; that the Church has no right to +employ force; that metaphysics can and ought to be pursued without +reference to divine and ecclesiastical authority; that Catholic states +are right to allow foreign immigrants to exercise their own religion in +public; that the Pope ought to make terms with progress, liberalism, and +modern civilization. The document was taken as a declaration of war +against enlightenment, and the Vatican Council as the first strategic +move of the hosts of darkness. It seemed that the powers of obscurantism +were lifting up their heads with a new menace, and there was an +instinctive feeling that all the forces of reason should be brought into +the field. The history of the last forty years shows that the theory of + +[211] Infallibility, since it has become a dogma, is not more harmful +than it was before. 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 disquieting. Against this was to +be set the destruction of the temporal power of the Popes and the +complete freedom of Italy. This event was the sunrise of Swinburne’s +Songs before Sunrise (which appeared in 1871), a seedplot of atheism and +revolution, sown with implacable hatred of creeds and tyrants. The most +wonderful poem in the volume, the Hymn of Man, was written while the +Vatican Council was sitting. It is a song of triumph over the God of the +priests, stricken by the doom of the Pope’s temporal power. The +concluding verses will show the spirit. + +“By thy name that in hellfire was written, and burned at the point of +thy sword, Thou art smitten, thou God, thou art smitten; thy death is +upon thee, O Lord. And the lovesong of earth as thou diest resounds +through the wind of her wings— Glory to Man in the highest! for Man is +the master of things.” + +[212] + +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 masses. + +Political circumstances thus invited and stimulated rationalists to come +forward boldly, but we must not leave out of account the influence of +the Broad Church movement and of Darwinism. The Descent of Man appeared +precisely in 1871. A new, undogmatic Christianity was being preached in +pulpits. Mr. Leslie Stephen remarked (1873) that “it may be said, with +little exaggeration, that there is not only no article in the creeds +which may not be contradicted with impunity, 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 +bishopric. The popular state of mind seems to be typified in the well- +known anecdote of the cautious churchwarden, who, whilst commending the +general tendency of his incumbent’s sermon, felt bound to hazard a +protest upon one point. ‘You see, sir,’ as he apologetically explained, +‘I think there be a God.’ He thought it an error of taste or perhaps of +judgment, to hint a doubt as to the first article of the creed.” + +The influence exerted among the cultivated + +[213] classes by the aesthetic movement (Ruskin, Morris, the Pre- +Raphaelite painters; then Pater’s Lectures on the Renaissance, 1873) was +also a sign of the times. For the attitude of these critics, artists, +and poets was essentially pagan. The saving truths of theology were for +them as if they did not exist. The ideal of happiness was found in a +region in which heaven was ignored. + +The time then seemed opportune for speaking out. Of the unorthodox books +and essays, [2] which influenced the young and alarmed believers, in +these exciting years, 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 Huxley. + +The agnostic holds that there are limits to human reason, and that +theology lies outside those limits. Within those limits lies the world +with which science (including psychology) deals. Science deals entirely +with phenomena, and has nothing to say to the nature of the ultimate +reality which may lie behind phenomena. There are four possible + +[214] attitudes to this ultimate reality. There is the attitude of the +metaphysician and theologian, who are convinced not only that it exists +but that it can be at least partly known. There is the attitude of the +man who denies that it exists; but he must be also a metaphysician, for +its existence can only be disproved by metaphysical arguments. Then +there are those who assert that it exists but deny that we can know +anything about it. And finally there are those who say that we cannot +know whether it exists or not. These last are “agnostics” in the strict +sense of the term, men who profess not to know. The third class go +beyond phenomena in so far as they assert that there is an ultimate +though unknowable reality beneath phenomena. 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 unknowable, as well as those who do not know +whether there is an unknowable or not. Comte and Spencer, for instance, +who believed in an unknowable, are counted as agnostics. The difference +between an agnostic and an atheist is that the atheist positively denies +the existence of a personal God, the agnostic does not believe in it. + +The writer of this period who held agnosticism + +[215] in its purest form, and who turned the dry light of reason on to +theological opinions with the most merciless logic, was Mr. Leslie +Stephen. His best-known essay, “An Agnostic’s Apology” (Fortnightly +Review, 1876), raises the question, have the dogmas of orthodox +theologians any meaning? Do they offer, for this is what we want, an +intelligible reconciliation of the discords in the universe? It is shown +in detail that the various theological explanations of the dealings of +God with man, when logically pressed, issue in a confession of +ignorance. And what is this but agnosticism? You may call your doubt a +mystery, but mystery is only the theological phrase for agnosticism. +“Why, when no honest man will deny in private that every ultimate +problem is wrapped in the profoundest mystery, do honest men proclaim in +pulpits that unhesitating certainty is the duty of the most foolish and +ignorant? We are a company of ignorant beings, dimly discerning light +enough for our daily needs, but hopelessly differing whenever we attempt +to describe the ultimate origin or end of our paths; and yet, 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 parish, he is hooted, reviled, + +[216] and perhaps told that he will be damned to all eternity for his +faithlessness.” 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 it, and that its solutions of +difficulties are sham solutions. If it solved any part of the mystery, +it would be welcome, but it does not, it only adds new difficulties. It +is “a mere edifice of moonshine.” The writer makes no attempt to prove +by logic that ultimate reality lies outside the limits of human reason. +He bases this conclusion on the fact that all philosophers hopelessly +contradict one another; if the subject-matter of philosophy were, like +physical science, within the reach of the intelligence, some agreement +must have been reached. + +The Broad Church movement, the attempts to liberalize Christianity, to +pour its old wine into new bottles, to make it unsectarian and +undogmatic, to find compromises between theology and science, found no +favour in Leslie Stephen’s eyes, and he criticized all this with a +certain contempt. There was a controversy about the efficacy of prayer. +Is it reasonable, for instance, to pray for rain? Here science and +theology were at issue on a practical + +[217] point which comes within the domain of science. Some theologians +adopted the compromise that to pray against an eclipse would be foolish, +but to pray for rain might be sensible. “One phenomenon,” Stephen wrote, +“is just as much the result of fixed causes as the other; 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 +forces, which elude our calculations in meteorological phenomena, than +to believe in it where the forces are simple enough to admit of +prediction. The distinction is of course invalid in a scientific sense. +Almighty power can interfere as easily with the events which are, as +with those which are not, in the Nautical Almanac. One cannot suppose +that God retreats as science advances, and that he spoke in thunder and +lightning till Franklin unravelled the laws of their phenomena.” + +Again, when a controversy about hell engaged public attention, 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 so, Leslie +Stephen stepped in to point out that, if so, historical + +[218] Christianity deserves all that its most virulent enemies have said +about it in this respect. When the Christian creed really ruled men’s +consciences, nobody could utter a word against the truth of the dogma of +hell. If that dogma had not an intimate organic connection with the +creed, if it had been a mere unimportant accident, it could not have +been so vigorous and persistent wherever Christianity was strongest. The +attempt to eliminate it or soften it down is a sign of decline. “Now, at +last, your creed is decaying. People have discovered that you know +nothing about it; that heaven and hell belong to dreamland; 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 myself, and that I know as much as my dog. And then you calmly say +again, ‘It is all a mistake. Only believe in a something —and we will +make it as easy for you as possible. Hell shall have no more than a fine +equable temperature, really good for the constitution; there shall be +nobody in it except Judas Iscariot and one or two others; and even the +poor Devil shall have a chance if he will resolve to mend his ways.’ ” + +Mr. Matthew Arnold may, I suppose, be numbered among the agnostics, but +he was + +[219] of a very different type. He introduced a new kind of criticism of +the Bible—literary criticism. Deeply concerned for morality and +religion, a supporter of the Established Church, he took the Bible under +his special protection, and in three works, St. Paul and Protestantism, +1870, Literature and Dogma, 1873, and God and the Bible, 1875, he +endeavoured to rescue that book from its orthodox exponents, whom he +regarded as the corrupters of Christianity. It would be just, he says, +“but hardly perhaps Christian,” to fling back the word infidel at the +orthodox theologians for their bad literary and scientific criticisms of +the Bible and to speak of “the torrent of infidelity which pours every +Sunday from our pulpits!” The corruption of Christianity has been due to +theology “with its insane licence of affirmation about God, its insane +licence of affirmation about immortality”; to the hypothesis of “a +magnified and non-natural man at the head of mankind’s and the world’s +affairs”; and the fancy account of God “made up by putting scattered +expressions of the Bible together and taking them literally.” He +chastises with urbane persiflage the knowledge which the orthodox think +they possess about the proceedings and plans of God. “To think they know +what passed in the Council of the + +[220] Trinity is not hard to them; they could easily think they even +knew what were the hangings of the Trinity’s council-chamber.” Yet “the +very expression, the Trinity, jars with the whole idea and character of +Bible-religion; but, lest the Socinian should be unduly elated at +hearing this, let us hasten to add that so too, and just as much, does +the expression, a great Personal First Cause.” He uses God as the least +inadequate name for that universal order which the intellect feels after +as a law, and the heart feels after as a benefit; and defines it as “the +stream of tendency by which all things strive to fulfil the law of their +being.” He defined it further as a Power that makes for righteousness, +and thus went considerably beyond the agnostic position. He was +impatient of the minute criticism which analyzes the Biblical documents +and discovers inconsistencies and absurdities, and he did not appreciate +the importance of the comparative study of religions. 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 them, we may wish that Arnold were here to reproach the +orthodox for “want of intellectual seriousness.” + +These years also saw the appearance of + +[221] Mr. John Morley’s sympathetic studies of the French freethinkers +of the eighteenth century, Voltaire (1872), Rousseau (1873), and Diderot +(1878). He edited the Fortnightly Review, and for some years this +journal was distinguished by brilliant criticisms on the popular +religion, contributed by able men writing from many points of view. A +part of the book which he afterwards published under the title +Compromise appeared in the Fortnightly in 1874. In Compromise, “the +whole system of objective propositions which make up the popular belief +of the day” is condemned as mischievous, and it is urged that those who +disbelieve should speak out plainly. Speaking out is an intellectual +duty. Englishmen have a strong sense of political responsibility, and a +correspondingly weak sense of intellectual responsibility. Even minds +that are not commonplace are affected for the worse by the political +spirit which “is the great force in throwing love of truth and accurate +reasoning into a secondary place.” And the principles which have +prevailed in politics have been adopted by theology for her own use. In +the one case, convenience first, truth second; in the other, emotional +comfort first, truth second. If the immorality is less gross in the case +of religion, + +[222] there is “the stain of intellectual improbity.” And this is a +crime against society, for “they who tamper with veracity from whatever +motive are tampering with the vital force of human progress.” The +intellectual insincerity which is here blamed is just as prevalent to- +day. The English have not changed their nature, the “political” spirit +is still rampant, and we are ruled by the view that because compromise +is necessary in politics it is also a good thing in the intellectual +domain. + +The Fortnightly under Mr. Morley’s guidance was an effective organ of +enlightenment. I have no space to touch on the works of other men of +letters and of men of science in these combative years, but it is to be +noted that, while denunciations of modern thought poured from the +pulpits, a popular diffusion of freethought was carried on, especially +by Mr. Bradlaugh in public lectures and in his paper, the National +Reformer, not without collisions with the civil authorities. + +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 centuries, we find that the object has always been to prevent +the spread of freethought among the masses. + +[223] The victims have been either poor, uneducated people, or men who +propagated freethought in a popular form. I touched upon this before in +speaking of Paine, and it is borne out by the prosecutions of the +nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The unconfessed motive has been fear +of the people. Theology has been regarded as a good instrument for +keeping the poor in order, and unbelief as a cause or accompaniment of +dangerous political opinions. The idea has not altogether disappeared +that free thought is peculiarly indecent in the poor, that it is highly +desirable to keep them superstitious in order to keep them contented, +that they should be duly thankful for all the theological as well as +social arrangements which have been made for them by their betters. I +may quote from an essay of Mr. Frederic Harrison an anecdote which +admirably expresses the becoming attitude of the poor towards +ecclesiastical institutions. “The master of a workhouse in Essex was +once called in to act as chaplain to a dying pauper. The poor soul +faintly murmured some hopes of heaven. But this the master abruptly cut +short and warned him to turn his last thoughts towards hell. ‘And +thankful you ought to be,’ said he, ‘that you have a hell to go to.’ ” + +[224] + +The most important English freethinkers who appealed to the masses were +Holyoake, [3] the apostle of “secularism,” and Bradlaugh. 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 +(1888). The chief work to which Holyoake (who in his early years was +imprisoned for blasphemy) contributed was the abolition of taxes on the +Press, which seriously hampered the popular diffusion of knowledge. [4] +In England, censorship of the Press had long ago disappeared (above, p. +139); in most other European countries it was abolished in the course of +the nineteenth century. [5] + +In the progressive countries of Europe there has been a marked growth of +tolerance (I do not mean legal toleration, but the tolerance + +[225] of public opinion) during the last thirty years. A generation ago +Lord Morley wrote: “The preliminary stage has scarcely been reached—the +stage in which public opinion grants to every one the unrestricted right +of shaping his own beliefs, independently of those of the people who +surround him.” I think this preliminary stage has now been passed. Take +England. We are now far from the days when Dr. Arnold would have sent +the elder Mill to Botany Bay for irreligious opinions. But we are also +far from the days when Darwin’s Descent created an uproar. Darwin has +been buried in Westminster Abbey. To-day books can appear denying the +historical existence of Jesus without causing any commotion. It may be +doubted whether what Lord Acton wrote in 1877 would be true now: “There +are in our day many educated men who think it right to persecute.” In +1895, Lecky was a candidate for the representation of Dublin University. +His rationalistic opinions were indeed brought up against him, but he +was successful, though the majority of the constituents were orthodox. +In the seventies his candidature would have been hopeless. The old +commonplace that a freethinker is sure to be immoral is no longer heard. +We may say that we have now + +[226] reached a stage at which it is admitted by every one who counts +(except at the Vatican), 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 impose. + +In this brief review of the triumphs of reason in the nineteenth +century, we have been considering the discoveries of science and +criticism which made the old orthodoxy logically untenable. But the +advance in freedom of thought, the marked difference in the general +attitude of men in all lands towards theological authority to-day from +the attitude of a hundred years ago, cannot altogether be explained by +the power of logic. It is not so much criticism of old ideas as the +appearance of new ideas and interests that changes the views of men at +large. It is not logical demonstrations but new social conceptions that +bring about a general transformation of attitude towards ultimate +problems. Now the idea of the progress of the human race must, I think, +be held largely answerable for this change of attitude. It must, I +think, be held to have operated powerfully as a solvent of theological +beliefs. I have spoken of the teaching of Diderot and his friends that +man’s energies should be devoted to making the earth pleasant. A + +[227] new ideal was substituted for the old ideal based on theological +propositions. It inspired the English Utilitarian philosophers (Bentham, +James Mill, J. S. Mill, Grote) who preached the greatest happiness of +the greatest number as the supreme object of action and the basis of +morality. This ideal was powerfully reinforced by the doctrine of +historical progress, which was started in France (1750) by Turgot, who +made progress the organic principle of history. It was developed by +Condorcet (1793), and put forward by Priestley in England. The idea was +seized upon by the French socialistic philosophers, Saint-Simon and +Fourier. The optimism of Fourier went so far as to anticipate the time +when the sea would be turned by man’s ingenuity into lemonade, when +there would be 37 million poets as great as Homer, 37 million writers as +great as Molière, 37 million men of science equal to Newton. But it was +Comte who gave the doctrine weight and power. His social philosophy and +his religion of Humanity are based upon it. The triumphs of science +endorsed it; it has been associated with, though it is not necessarily +implied in, the scientific theory of evolution; and it is perhaps fair +to say that it has been the guiding spiritual force of the nineteenth +century. It has introduced + +[228] the new ethical principle of duty to posterity. 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 grave; and it has dissolved the blighting +doctrine of the radical corruption of man. + +Nowhere has the theory of progress been more emphatically recognized +than in the Monistic movement which has been exciting great interest in +Germany (1910–12). This movement is based on the ideas of Haeckel, who +is looked up to as the master; but those ideas have been considerably +changed under the influence of Ostwald, the new leader. While Haeckel is +a biologist, Ostwald’s brilliant work was done in chemistry and physics. +The new Monism differs from the old, in the first place, in being much +less dogmatic. It declares that all that is in our experience can be the +object of a corresponding science. It is much more a method than a +system, for its sole ultimate object is to comprehend all human +experience in unified knowledge. Secondly, while it maintains, with +Haeckel, evolution as the guiding principle in the history of living +things, it rejects his pantheism and his theory of thinking atoms. The +old mechanical theory of the + +[229] physical world has been gradually supplanted by the theory of +energy, and Ostwald, who was one of the foremost exponents of energy, +has made it a leading idea of Monism. What has been called matter is, so +far as we know now, simply a complex of energies, and he has sought to +extend the “energetic” principle from physical or chemical to +biological, psychical, and social phenomena. But it is to be observed +that no finality is claimed for the conception of energy; it is simply +an hypothesis which corresponds to our present stage of knowledge, and +may, as knowledge advances, be superseded. + +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 +theology, mysticism, and metaphysics. It may be called a religion, if we +adopt Mr. MacTaggart’s definition of religion as “an emotion resting on +a conviction of the harmony between ourselves and the universe at +large.” But it is much better not to use the word religion in connexion +with it, and the Monists have no thought of finding a Monistic, as Comte +founded a Positivist, church. They insist upon the sharp opposition +between the outlook of science and the outlook of religion, and find the +mark of spiritual progress in the fact that religion is + +[230] gradually becoming less indispensable. The further we go back in +the past, the more valuable is religion as an element in civilization; +as we advance, it retreats more and more into the background, to be +replaced by science. Religions have been, in principle, pessimistic, so +far as the present world is concerned; Monism is, in principle, +optimistic, for it recognizes that the process of his evolution has +overcome, in increasing measure, the bad element in man, and will go on +overcoming it still more. Monism proclaims that development and progress +are the practical principles of human conduct, while the Churches, +especially the Catholic Church, have been steadily conservative, and +though they have been unable to put a stop to progress have endeavoured +to suppress its symptoms—to bottle up the steam. [6] The Monistic +congress at Hamburg in 1911 had a success which surprised its promoters. +The movement bids fair to be a powerful influence in diffusing +rationalistic thought. [7] + +If we take the three large States of + +[231] Western Europe, in which the majority of Christians are Catholics, +we see how the ideal of progress, freedom of thought, and the decline of +ecclesiastical power go together. In Spain, where the Church has +enormous power and wealth and can still dictate to the Court and the +politicians, the idea of progress, which is vital in France and Italy, +has not yet made its influence seriously felt. Liberal thought indeed is +widely spread in the small educated class, but the great majority of the +whole population are illiterate, and it is the interest of the Church to +keep them so. The education of the people, as all enlightened Spaniards +confess, is the pressing need of the country. 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 +Ferrer, which reminded everybody that in one corner of Western Europe +the mediaeval spirit is still vigorous. Ferrer had devoted himself to +the founding of modern schools in the province of Catalonia (since +1901). He was a rationalist, and his schools, which had a marked +success, were entirely secular. The ecclesiastical authorities execrated +him, and in the summer of 1909 chance gave them the means of destroying +him. A strike of workmen at + +[232] Barcelona developed into a violent revolution, Ferrer happened to +be in Barcelona for some days at the beginning of the movement, with +which he had no connection whatever, and his enemies seized the +opportunity to make him responsible for it. False evidence (including +forged documents) was manufactured. Evidence which would have helped his +case was suppressed. The Catholic papers agitated against him, and the +leading ecclesiastics of Barcelona urged the Government not to spare the +man who founded the modern schools, the root of all the trouble. Ferrer +was condemned by a military tribunal and shot (Oct. 13). He suffered in +the cause of reason and freedom of thought, though, as there is no +longer an Inquisition, his enemies had to kill him under the false +charge of anarchy and treason. 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 measures, but almost anything may happen +in a country where the Church is so powerful and so bigoted, and the +politicians so corrupt. + +[1] From Greek monos, alone. + +[2] Besides the works referred to in the text, may be mentioned: Winwood +Reade, Martyrdom of Man, 1871; Mill, Three Essays on Religion; W. R. +Cassels, Supernatural Religion; Tyndall, Address to British Association +at Belfast; Huxley, Animal Automatism; W. K. Clifford, Body and Mind; +all in 1874. + +[3] It may be noted that Holyoake towards the end of his life helped to +found the Rationalist Press Association, of which Mr. Edward Clodd has +been for many years Chairman. This is the chief society in England for +propagating rationalism, and its main object is to diffuse in a cheap +form the works of freethinkers of mark (cp. Bibliography). I understand +that more than two million copies of its cheap reprints have been sold. + +[4] The advertisement tax was abolished in 1853, the stamp tax in 1855, +the paper duty in 1861, and the optional duty in 1870. + +[5] In Austria-Hungary the police have the power to suppress printed +matter provisionally. In Russia the Press was declared free in 1905 by +an Imperial decree, which, however, has become a dead letter. The +newspapers are completely under the control of the police. + +[6] I have taken these points, illustrating the Monistic attitude to the +Churches, from Ostwald’s Monistic Sunday Sermons (German), 1911, 1912. + +[7] I may note here that, as this is not a history of thought, I make no +reference to recent philosophical speculations (in America, England, and +France) which are sometimes claimed as tending to bolster up theology. +But they are all profoundly unorthodox. + + + +[233] + +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 +tyrannical, and as they think extraordinarily perverse, policy by which +communities and governments persistently sought to stifle new ideas and +suppress free speculation. The conflict sketched in these pages appears +as a war between light and darkness. We exclaim that altar and throne +formed a sinister conspiracy against the progress of humanity. We look +back with horror at the things which so many champions of reason endured +at the hands of blind, if not malignant, bearers of authority. + +But a more or less plausible case can be made out for coercion. Let us +take the most limited view of the lawful powers of society over its +individual members. Let us lay down, with Mill, that “the sole end for +which mankind are warranted, individually and collectively, in +interfering with the liberty of action of any of their members is self- +protection,” and that coercion is only justified + +[234] for the prevention of harm to others. This is the minimum claim +the State can make, and it will be admitted that it is not only the +right but the duty of the State to prevent harm to its members. That is +what it is for. Now no abstract or independent principle is +discoverable, why liberty of speech should be a privileged form of +liberty of action, or why society should lay down its arms of defence +and fold its hands, when it is persuaded that harm is threatened to it +through the speech of any of its members. The Government has to judge of +the danger, and its judgment may be wrong; but if it is convinced that +harm is being done, is it not its plain duty to interfere? + +This argument supplies an apology for the suppression of free opinion by +Governments in ancient and modern times. It can be urged for the +Inquisition, for Censorship of the Press, for Blasphemy laws, for all +coercive measures of the kind, that, if excessive or ill-judged, they +were intended to protect society against what their authors sincerely +believed to be grave injury, and were simple acts of duty. (This +apology, of course, does not extend to acts done for the sake of the +alleged good of the victims themselves, namely, to secure their future +salvation.) + +Nowadays we condemn all such measures + +[235] and disallow the right of the State to interfere with the free +expression of opinion. 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 ancestors. How is this doctrine justified? It +rests on no abstract basis, on no principle independent of society +itself, but entirely on considerations of utility. + +We saw how Socrates indicated the social value of freedom of discussion. +We saw how Milton observed that such freedom was necessary for the +advance of knowledge. But in the period during which the cause of +toleration was fought for and practically won, the argument more +generally used was the injustice of punishing a man for opinions which +he honestly held and could not help holding, since conviction is not a +matter of will; in other words, the argument that error is not a crime +and that it is therefore unjust to punish it. This argument, however, +does not prove the case for freedom of discussion. The advocate of +coercion may reply: We admit that it is unjust to punish a man for +private erroneous beliefs; but it is not unjust to forbid the +propagation of such beliefs if we are convinced that they are harmful; +it is not unjust to punish him, not for holding them, but for publishing +them. The truth + +[236] is that, in examining principles, the word just is misleading. All +the virtues are based on experience, physiological or social, and +justice is no exception. 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 expediency. And social utility is the only +test. It is futile, therefore, to say to a Government that it acts +unjustly in coercing opinion, unless it is shown that freedom of opinion +is a principle of such overmastering social utility as to render other +considerations negligible. Socrates had a true instinct in taking the +line that freedom is valuable to society. + +The reasoned justification of liberty of thought is due to J. S. Mill, +who set it forth in his work On Liberty, published in 1859. This book +treats of liberty in general, and attempts to fix the frontier of the +region in which individual freedom should be considered absolute and +unassailable. The second chapter considers liberty of thought and +discussion, and if many may think that Mill unduly minimized the +functions of society, underrating its claims as against the individual, +few will deny the justice of the chief arguments or question the general +soundness of his conclusions. + +[237] + +Pointing out that no fixed standard was recognized for testing the +propriety of the interference on the part of the community with its +individual members, he finds the test in self-protection, that is, the +prevention of harm to others. He bases the proposition not on abstract +rights, but on “utility, in the largest sense, grounded on the permanent +interests of man as a progressive being.” He then uses the following +argument to show that to silence opinion and discussion is always +contrary to those permanent interests. Those who would suppress an +opinion (it is assumed that they are honest) deny its truth, but they +are not infallible. They may be wrong, or right, or partly wrong and +partly right. (1) If they are wrong and the opinion they would crush is +true, they have robbed, or done their utmost to rob, mankind of a truth. +They will say: But we were justified, for we exercised our judgment to +the best of our ability, and are we to be told that because our judgment +is fallible we are not to use it? We forbade the propagation of an +opinion which we were sure was false and pernicious; this implies no +greater claim to infallibility than any act done by public authority. If +we are to act at all, we must assume our own opinion to be true. To this +Mill acutely replies: “There is the greatest difference + +[238] between assuming an opinion to be true, because with every +opportunity for contesting it it has not been refuted, and assuming its +truth for the purpose of not permitting its refutation. Complete liberty +of contradicting and disproving our opinion is the very condition which +justifies us in assuming its truth for purposes of action, and on no +other terms can a being with human faculties have any rational assurance +of being right.” + +(2) If the received opinion which it is sought to protect against the +intrusion of error is true, the suppression of discussion is still +contrary to general utility. A received opinion may happen to be true +(it is very seldom entirely true); 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 shaken. + +Commoner and more important is (3) the case where the conflicting +doctrines share the truth between them. Here Mill has little difficulty +in proving the utility of supplementing one-sided popular truths by +other truths which popular opinion omits to consider. And he observes +that if either of the opinions which share the truth has a claim not +merely to be tolerated but to be encouraged, it is the one which happens +to be held by the minority, since this is the one “which + +[239] for the time being represents the neglected interests.” He takes +the doctrines of Rousseau, which might conceivably have been suppressed +as pernicious. To the self-complacent eighteenth century those doctrines +came as “a salutary shock, dislocating the compact mass of one-sided +opinion.” The current opinions were indeed nearer to the truth than +Rousseau’s, they contained much less of error; “nevertheless there lay +in Rousseau’s doctrine, and has floated down the stream of opinion along +with it, a considerable amount of exactly those truths which the popular +opinion wanted; and these are the deposit which we left behind when the +flood subsided.” + +Such is the drift of Mill’s main argument. The present writer would +prefer to state the justification of freedom of opinion in a somewhat +different form, though in accordance with Mill’s reasoning. The progress +of civilization, if it is partly conditioned by circumstances beyond +man’s control, depends more, and in an increasing measure, on things +which are within his own power. Prominent among these are the +advancement of knowledge and the deliberate adaptation of his habits and +institutions to new conditions. To advance knowledge and to correct +errors, unrestricted freedom of discussion is required. + +[240] History shows that knowledge grew when speculation was perfectly +free in Greece, and that in modern times, since restrictions on inquiry +have been entirely removed, it has advanced with a velocity which would +seem diabolical to the slaves of the mediaeval Church. Then, it is +obvious that in order to readjust social customs, institutions, and +methods to new needs and circumstances, there must be unlimited freedom +of canvassing and criticizing them, of expressing the most unpopular +opinions, no matter how offensive to prevailing sentiment they may be. +If the history of civilization has any lesson to teach it is this: there +is one supreme condition of mental and moral progress which it is +completely within the power of man himself to secure, and that is +perfect liberty of thought and discussion. The establishment of this +liberty may be considered the most valuable achievement of modern +civilization, and as a condition of social progress it should be deemed +fundamental. 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 violation. + +It is evident that this whole argument depends on the assumption that +the progress of the race, its intellectual and moral development, + +[241] is a reality and is valuable. The argument will not appeal to any +one who holds with Cardinal Newman that “our race’s progress and +perfectibility is a dream, because revelation contradicts it”; and he +may consistently subscribe to the same writer’s conviction that “it +would be a gain to this country were it vastly more superstitious, more +bigoted, more gloomy, more fierce in its religion, than at present it +shows itself to be.” + +While Mill was writing his brilliant Essay, which every one should read, +the English Government of the day (1858) instituted prosecutions for the +circulation of the doctrine that it is lawful to put tyrants to death, +on the ground that the doctrine is immoral. Fortunately the prosecutions +were not persisted in. Mill refers to the matter, and maintains that +such a doctrine as tyrannicide (and, let us add, anarchy) does not form +any exception to the rule that “there ought to exist the fullest liberty +of professing and discussing, as a matter of ethical conviction, any +doctrine, however immoral it may be considered.” + +Exceptions, cases where the interference of the authorities is proper, +are only apparent, for they really come under another rule. For +instance, if there is a direct instigation + +[242] to particular acts of violence, there may be a legitimate case for +interference. But the incitement must be deliberate and direct. If I +write a book condemning existing societies and defending a theory of +anarchy, and a man who reads it presently commits an outrage, it may +clearly be established that my book made the man an anarchist and +induced him to commit the crime, but it would be illegitimate to punish +me or suppress the book unless it contained a direct incitement to the +specific crime which he committed. + +It is conceivable that difficult cases might arise where a government +might be strongly tempted, and might be urged by public clamour, to +violate the principle of liberty. Let us suppose a case, very +improbable, but which will make the issue clear and definite. Imagine +that a man of highly magnetic personality, endowed with a wonderful +power of infecting others with his own ideas however irrational, in +short a typical religious leader, is convinced that the world will come +to an end in the course of a few months. He goes about the country +preaching and distributing pamphlets; his words have an electrical +effect; 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 +Judgment. Multitudes leave their + +[243] occupations, abandon their work, in order to spend the short time +that remains in prayer and listening to the exhortations of the prophet. +The country is paralyzed by the gigantic strike; traffic and industries +come to a standstill. The people have a perfect legal right to give up +their work, 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 erroneously. It +would be said that desperate ills have desperate remedies, and there +would be a strong temptation to suppress the fanatic. But to arrest a +man who is not breaking the law or exhorting any one to break it, or +causing a breach of the peace, would be an act of glaring tyranny. Many +will hold that the evil of setting back the clock of liberty would out- +balance all the temporary evils, great as they might be, caused by the +propagation of a delusion. It would be absurd to deny that liberty of +speech may sometimes cause particular harm. Every good thing sometimes +does harm. Government, for instance, which makes fatal mistakes; law, +which so often bears hardly and inequitably in individual cases. And can +the Christians urge any other plea for their religion when they are +unpleasantly reminded that it has caused untold + +[244] suffering by its principle of exclusive salvation? + +Once the principle of liberty of thought is accepted as a supreme +condition of social progress, it passes from the sphere of ordinary +expediency into the sphere of higher expediency which we call justice. +In other words it becomes a right on which every man should be able to +count. The fact that this right is ultimately based on utility does not +justify a government in curtailing it, on the ground of utility, in +particular cases. + +The recent rather alarming inflictions of penalties for blasphemy in +England illustrate this point. It was commonly supposed that the +Blasphemy laws (see above, p. 139), though unrepealed, were a dead +letter. But since December, 1911, half a dozen persons have been +imprisoned for this offence. In these cases Christian doctrines were +attacked by poor and more or less uneducated persons in language which +may be described as coarse and offensive. Some of the judges seem to +have taken the line that it is not blasphemy to attack the fundamental +doctrines provided “the decencies of controversy” are preserved, but +that “indecent” attacks constitute blasphemy. This implies a new +definition of legal blasphemy, and is entirely contrary to the intention +of the laws. Sir + +[245] J. F. Stephen pointed out that the decisions of judges from the +time of Lord Hale (XVIIth century) to the trial of Foote (1883) laid +down the same doctrine and based it on the same principle: 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 +ridicule; and the principle being that Christianity is a part of the law +of the land. + +The apology offered for such prosecutions is that their object is to +protect religious sentiment from insult and ridicule. Sir J. F. Stephen +observed: “If the law were really impartial and punished blasphemy only, +because it offends the feelings of believers, it ought also to punish +such preaching as offends the feelings of unbelievers. All the more +earnest and enthusiastic forms of religion are extremely offensive to +those who do not believe them.” If the law does not in any sense +recognize the truth of Christian doctrine, it would have to apply the +same rule to the Salvation Army. In fact the law “can be explained and +justified only on what I regard as its true principle—the principle of +persecution.” The opponents of Christianity may justly say: If +Christianity is false, why is it to be attacked only in polite language? +Its goodness depends on its truth. If you + +[246] grant its falsehood, you cannot maintain that it deserves special +protection. But the law imposes no restraint on the Christian, however +offensive his teaching may be to those who do not agree with him; +therefore it is not based on an impartial desire to prevent the use of +language which causes offence; therefore it is based on the hypothesis +that Christianity is true; and therefore its principle is persecution. + +Of course, 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 progress. But it violates the supreme +principle of liberty of opinion and discussion. It hinders uneducated +people from saying in the only ways in which they know how to say it, +what those who have been brought up differently say, with impunity, far +more effectively and far more insidiously. Some of the men who have been +imprisoned during the last two years, 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 +person, and against which the law, if it has any validity, ought to have +been enforced. Thus the law, as now administered, simply penalizes bad +taste and places disabilities + +[247] upon uneducated freethinkers. If their words offend their audience +so far as to cause a disturbance, they should be prosecuted for a breach +of public order, [1] not because their words are blasphemous. A man who +robs or injures a church, or even an episcopal palace, is not prosecuted +for sacrilege, but for larceny or malicious damage or something of the +kind. + +The abolition of penalties for blasphemy was proposed in the House of +Commons (by Bradlaugh) in 1889 and rejected. The reform is urgently +needed. It would “prevent the recurrence at irregular intervals of +scandalous prosecutions which have never in any one instance benefited +any one, least of all the cause which they were intended to serve, and +which sometimes afford a channel for the gratification of private malice +under the cloak of religion.” [2] + +The struggle of reason against authority has ended in what appears now +to be a decisive and permanent victory for liberty. In the most +civilized and progressive countries, freedom of discussion is recognized +as a + +[248] fundamental principle. In fact, we may say it is accepted as a +test of enlightenment, and the man in the street is forward in +acknowledging that countries like Russia and Spain, where opinion is +more or less fettered, must on that account be considered less civilized +than their neighbours. 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 +assumptions. No man of science has any fear of publishing his +researches, whatever consequences they may involve for current beliefs. +Criticism of religious doctrines and of political and social +institutions is free. Hopeful people may feel confident that the victory +is permanent; that intellectual freedom is now assured to mankind as a +possession for ever; 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 earth. Yet history may suggest that this prospect +is not assured. Can we be certain that there may not come a great set- +back? For freedom of discussion and speculation was, as we saw, fully +realized in the Greek and Roman world, and then an unforeseen force, in +the shape of Christianity, came in and laid chains upon the human mind +and + +[249] suppressed freedom and imposed upon man a weary struggle to +recover the freedom which he had lost. Is it not conceivable that +something of the same kind may occur again? that some new force, +emerging from the unknown, may surprise the world and cause a similar +set-back? + +The possibility cannot be denied, but there are some considerations +which render it improbable (apart from a catastrophe sweeping away +European culture). There are certain radical differences between the +intellectual situation now and in antiquity. The facts known to the +Greeks about the nature of the physical universe were few. Much that was +taught was not proved. Compare what they knew and what we know about +astronomy and geography—to take the two branches in which (besides +mathematics) they made most progress. When there were so few +demonstrated facts to work upon, there was the widest room for +speculation. Now to suppress a number of rival theories in favour of one +is a very different thing from suppressing whole systems of established +facts. If one school of astronomers holds that the earth goes round the +sun, another that the sun goes round the earth, but neither is able to +demonstrate its proposition, it is easy for an authority, which has +coercive power, + +[250] to suppress one of them successfully. But once it is agreed by all +astronomers that the earth goes round the sun, it is a hopeless task for +any authority to compel men to accept a false view. In short, because +she is in possession of a vast mass of ascertained facts about the +nature of the universe, reason holds a much stronger position now than +at the time when Christian theology led her captive. All these facts are +her fortifications. Again, it is difficult to see what can arrest the +continuous progress of knowledge in the future. In ancient times this +progress depended on a few; nowadays, many nations take part in the +work. A general conviction of the importance of science prevails to-day, +which did not prevail in Greece. 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 halt. In +fact science is now a social institution, as much as religion. + +But if science seems pretty safe, it is always possible that in +countries where the scientific spirit is held in honour, nevertheless, +serious restrictions may be laid on speculations touching social, +political, and religious questions. Russia has men of science inferior +to none, and Russia has its notorious censorship. It + +[251] is by no means inconceivable that in lands where opinion is now +free coercion might be introduced. If a revolutionary social movement +prevailed, led by men inspired by faith in formulas (like the men of the +French Revolution) and resolved to impose their creed, experience shows +that coercion would almost inevitably be resorted to. Nevertheless, +while it would be silly to suppose that attempts may not be made in the +future to put back the clock, liberty is in a far more favourable +position now than under the Roman Empire. For at that time the social +importance of freedom of opinion was not appreciated, whereas now, in +consequence of the long conflict which was necessary in order to re- +establish it, men consciously realize its value. Perhaps this conviction +will be strong enough to resist all conspiracies against liberty. +Meanwhile, nothing should be left undone to impress upon the young that +freedom of thought is an axiom of human progress. It may be feared, +however, that this is not likely to be done for a long time to come. For +our methods of early education are founded on authority. It is true that +children are sometimes exhorted to think for themselves. But the parent +or instructor who gives this excellent advice is confident that the +results of the child’s thinking for + +[252] himself will agree with the opinions which his elders consider +desirable. It is assumed that he will reason from principles which have +already been instilled into him by authority. But if his thinking for +himself takes the form of questioning these principles, whether moral or +religious, his parents and teachers, unless they are very exceptional +persons, will be extremely displeased, and will certainly discourage +him. It is, of course, only singularly promising children whose freedom +of thought will go so far. In this sense it might be said that “distrust +thy father and mother” is the first commandment with promise. It should +be a part of education to explain to children, as soon as they are old +enough to understand, when it is reasonable, and when it is not, to +accept what they are told, on authority. + +[1] Blasphemy is an offence in Germany; but it must be proved that +offence has actually been given, and the penalty does not exceed +imprisonment for three days. + +[2] The quotations are from Sir J. F. Stephen’s article, “Blasphemy and +Blasphemous Libel,” in the Fortnightly Review, March, 1884, pp. 289–318. + +[253] + + + +BIBLIOGRAPHY + + General +Lecky, W. E. H., History of the Rise and Influence of the + Spirit of Rationalism in Europe, 2 vols. (originally published + in 1865). White, A. D., A History of the Warfare + of Science with Theology in Christendom, 2 vols., 1896. + Robertson, J. M., A Short History of Free-thought, Ancient + and Modern, 2 vols., 1906. [Comprehensive, but the + notices of the leading freethinkers are necessarily brief, as + the field covered is so large. The judgments are always + independent.] Benn, A. W., The History of English + Rationalism in the Nineteenth Century, 2 vols., 1906. + [Very full and valuable] + + Greek Thought +Gomperz, Th., Greek Thinkers (English translation), 4 vols. + (1901-12). + + English Deists +Stephen, Leslie, History of English Thought in the Eighteenth + Century, vol. i, 1881. + + French Freethinkers of Eighteenth Century +Morley, J., Voltaire; Diderot and the Encyclopaedists; + Rousseau (see above, Chapter VI). + + Rationalistic Criticism of the Bible + (Nineteenth Century) +Articles in Encyclopoedia Biblica, 4 vols. Duff, A., History of + Old Testament Criticism, 1910. Conybeare, F. C., History + of New Testament Criticism, 1910. + + Persecution and Inquisition +Lea, H., A History of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, 3 + vols., 1888; A History of the Inquisition of Spain, 4 vols., + 1906. Haynes, E. S. P., Religious Persecution, 1904. + For the case of Ferrer see Archer, W., The Life, Trial + and Death of Francisco Ferrer, 1911, and McCabe, J., + The Martyrdom of Ferrer, 1909. + + Toleration +Ruffini, F., Religious Liberty (English translation), 1912. + The essays of L. Luzzatti. Liberty of Conscience and + Science (Italian), are suggestive. + +[254] + +INDEX + +Aesthetic movement, 213 +Agnosticism, meaning of, 213 sq. +Albigeois, persecution of, 58 +Anabaptists, 78, 95, 125 +Anatomy, 65 +Anaxagoras, 27 +Annet, Peter, 172 +Anthropology, 189 +Anthropomorphism. 23 +Aristotle, 35, 68, 69 +Arnold, Matthew, 218 sqq. +Asoka, 92 +Astronomy, 87—90 +Atheism, 103, 113, 123, 132, 158 +Athens, 27 sqq. +Augustine, St., 55 +Austria-Hungary, 122, 224 +Authority, meaning of, 14 sqq. +Averroism, 88 + +Bacon, Roger, 85 +Bahrdt, 175 +Rain, A., 188 +Bayle, 107 sq., 135 sqq. +Benn, A. W, 152 +Bible, O. T., 192 sqq.; N. T., 195 sqq +Bible-worship, 82, 201 +Blasphemy laws, 23, 88, 139 sq., 244 sqq. +Bolingbroke, 153 +Bradlaugh, 228, 247 +Bruno, Giordano, 84 +Büchner, 188 +Buckle, 188 +Butler, Bishop, Analogy, 151 sq. + +Calvin, 78 +Cassels, W +Castellion, 94 +Causation, Law of, 183 sq. +Charron. 75 +Cicero, 39 +Clifford, W. K., 213 +Clodd, Edward, 224 +Colenso, Bishop, 193 +Collins, Anthony, 141 +Comte, Auguste. 188 sq., 229 +Concordat of 1801, French, 115 + +Condorcet, 227 +Congregationalists (Independents), 95, 99, 100 +Constantine I, Emperor, 47, 51 +Copernicus, 87 + +Darwin; Darwinism, 180, 182, 225 +Defoe, Daniel, 104 sq. +Deism, 137 sqq. +Democritus, 25 +Descartes, 129, 131 +Design, argument from, 181, 178 +D’Holbach, 158 +Diderot, 158 sq. +Diocletian, Emperor, 45 +Disestablishment, 104, 108 +Dodwell, Henry, 147 +Domitian, Emperor, 42 +Double Truth, 68 sq., 134 + +Edelmann, 175 +Epicureanism, 36 sqq., 84 +Essays and Review, 204 sqq. +Euripides, 29 +Exclusive salvation, 52 sq., 63, 78 + +Ferrer, Francisco, 231 sq. +Fortnightly Review, 221 +Fourier, 227 +France, 74, 100 sqq., 152 sqq. +Frederick the Great, 120 sq. +Frederick II, Emperor, 58, 70 +Free thought, meaning of, 18 + +Galileo de’ Galilei, 87 sqq. +Gassendi, 130 +Geology, 178 sq. +Germany, 78 sqq., 117 sqq., 174 sqq. +Gibbon, 82, 162 sqq. +Goethe, 175 +Greg, W. R., 203 +Gregory IX, Pope, 57 +Gregory XVI, Encyclical of, 123 sq. + +Haeckel, 187, 228 +Hale, Lord Chief Justice, 139 +Harrison, Frederic, 188, 223 +Hegel, 184 sqq. +Hell, controversy on, 217 + +[255] +Helmholtz, 182 +Heraclitus, 25 +Herbert of Cherbury, Lord, 149 +Hippocrates, 64 +Hobbes, 130 sq. +Holland, 95, 107, 130, 131 +Holyoake, 224 +Homer, 24 +Hume, 160 sqq. +Huxley, 213 + +Independents, 95, 98 sq. +Infallibility, Papal, 210 sq. +Innocent III, Pope, 56 +Innocent IV, Pope, 57 +Innocent VIII, Pope, 67 +Inquisition, 57 sqq.; Spanish, 59 sqq.; Roman, 83, 84, 87 sqq. +Italy, 122 sqq., 210 + +James I (England). 85 sq. +Jews, 41 sqq., 68, 99, 105, 111, 194 +Joseph II, Emperor, 122 +Jowett, Benjamin, 204 sq. +Julian, Emperor, 54 +Justice, arguments from, 235 + +Kant, 175 sq. +Kett, Francis, 85 +Kyd, 85 + +Laplace, 178 +Lecky. W. H., 208, 225 +Legate, Bartholomew, 86 +Lessing, 71, 120 +Linnaeus, 177 +Locke, 101 sqq., 120, 132 sq. +Loisy, Abbé, 200 sq. +Lucian, 40 +Lucretius, 37 sq. +Luther, 77 sq., 81 +Lyell, 178, 208 + +Manning, Cardinal, 210 +Marlowe, Christopher, 85 +Marsilius, 119 +Maryland, 97 sq. +Mazarin, Cardinal, 85, 107 +Middleton, Conyers, 150, 164 +Mill, James, 151, 227 +Mill, J. S., 182, 213, 227, 233, 235 sqq. +Milton, 99 sq. +Mirabeau, 112 +Miracles, 141 sqq., 151, 180, 164 sq., 206 +Modernism, 199 sqq. +Mohammedan free thought, 68 +Monism, 188, 228 sqq. + +Montaigne, 74 +Morley, Lord (Mr. John), 159, 209, 221 sq., 225 + +Nantes, Edict of, 107 +Napoleon I, 115 +Newman, Cardinal, 199, 241 +Newman, F. W., 203 + +Ostwald, Professor, 228 sqq. + +Paine, Thomas, 112, 168 sqq. +Paley, 167 sqq. +Pascal, 123, 152 sq. +Pater, 213 +Pentateuch, 192 sq. +Pericles, 27 +Persecution, theory of, 47 sqq., 232 sqq. +Pitt, William, 151 +Pius IX, Syllabus, 210 sq. +Pius X, Pope, 199 sq. +Plato, 36 sq. +Plutarch, 150 +Prayer, controversy on, 216 +Press, censorship, 91 sq., 224 sq. +Priestley, 227 +Priscillian, 55 +Progress, idea of, 226 sqq. +Protagoras, 25 + +Raleigh, Sir W., 85 +Rationalism, meaning of, 18 +Reade, Winwood, 213 +Reinach, S., 197 +Renan, 198 +Revolution, French, 111 sqq. +Rhode Island, 98 +Richelieu, Cardinal, 85, 107 +Rousseau. 111, 156 sqq., 239 +Ruffini, Professor, 125 +Russia, 224 + +Sacred books, 24, 53 sq., 191 +Science, physical, 64 sq., 176 sqq. +Secularism, 224 +Seeley, J. R., 208 +Servetus, 79 +Shaftesbury. 148 sqq., 151 +Shelley, 173, 208 +Socinianism, 83, 93 sqq. +Socrates, 30 sqq., 39, 235, 236 +Sophists, Greek, 26 +Spain, 59 sqq., 231 sq. +Spencer, Herbert. 187 +Spinoza, 131 sq., 138, 191 +Stephen. Leslie, 167, 215 sqq. +Stephen, J. F.. 203, 245 sq., 247 +Stoicism, 36, 38 sq. + +[256] +Strauss, David, 195, 198 +Swinburne. 208, 211 sq. + +Tamburini. 122 +Tatian, 44 +Themistius, 55 +Theodosius I, Emperor, 54 +Theophilanthropy, 114 sq. +Thomas Aquinas, 69 +Thomasius, Chr., 119 +Three Rings, story of, 70 +Tiherius, Emperor, 40 +Tindal, Matthew, 144 sqq. +Toland, 133 sq. +Toleration, 46 sqq., 92 sqq. +Trajan, Emperor, 42 +Turgot, 227 +Tyndall, 213 + +Unitarians, 93, 105 +United States, 96 sqq., 128 +Universities, tests at, 108 +Utilitarianism, 227 + +Vanini, Lucilio, 85 +Vatican Council (1869—70), 210 +Voltaire, 108 sqq., 114, 121, 153 sqq. + +Wesley, 130 +Westbury, Lord, 207 +Wilberforce, 201 +Williams, Roger, 96 sq. +Witchcraft, 66 sq., 80, 129 sq. +Woolston, 141 sqq. + +Xenophanes, 23 sq. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A History of Freedom of Thought +by John Bagnell Bury + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10684 *** |