CHAPTER III

FREETHINKERS, DEISTS, AND MORALISTS

TOLAND-COLLINS-TINDAL-SHAFTESBURY-MANDEVILLE

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BOLINGBROKE-CHESTERFIELD-MARY MONTAGU

NGLAND is the country of slow, but continuous development. In culture, her progress is deliberate, but she rarely, if ever, halts in her well-considered advance. The seventeenth century, with its religious and political movements that stirred the life of the English people to its inmost depths, had intensified its whole intellectual life, as the Reformation affected German national life. Viewed in this connection, Puritanism finally became a blessing; it helped to arouse deeper feeling in the soul of the people.

Englishmen had learnt the correct method of scientific investigation from Francis Bacon. Hobbes, the eloquent advocate of State absolutism, was a revolutionist in religious questions. He denied that men could know any more of the divinity beyond the fact that it existed; he rejected revelation and the immortality of the soul. Locke completed the preparation of the soil for a new view of the world, by disputing supernatural or superhuman sources of knowledge, and, above all, set up a new principle of life,―mutual toleration in religious questions.

We thus see all the fundamental bases of the philosophy of the eighteenth century already laid. It is not difficult to understand that it was, as a matter of course, Englishmen who played the difficult part of advance thinkers for the entire modern world. Everywhere throughout the civilised world, and not least in Germany, thoughtful intellects had been released from their trammels by the Reformation; but everywhere, except in free England, the limits of State arbitrariness in the matter of expression spread, and manifestation of intellectual freedom blocked the way. Only in England was there a Habeas Corpus; and only in England could a bold thinker undauntedly express his deliberate opinion even upon the "last questions" without danger to life or liberty. Certainly, the English champions of in

tellectual freedom in the beginning of the eighteenth century endured persecutions and hazards of many kinds; but things did not go beyond the burning of one of their books (Toland's Christianity not Mysterious) in bigoted Ireland. Not one of the three chief leaders of the movement-Toland, Collins, and Tindal-lost his liberty; all three died in honour at an advanced age. A moral earnestness of language and method of treatment, worthy of the lofty subject, is common to them all. In this especially the difference between the English and French philosophers of the eighteenth century is clearly shown. English liberty and the freedom of the Press preserved the character of sober dignity even in the case of such fundamentally revolutionary investigations as Toland's. In France the censorship and the Bastille, the bulwarks of the capital, caused every intellectual aspiration to freedom to be at once invested with a certain odour of iniquity. In England we find the proud consciousness of an honourably discovered truth; in France the malicious gloating over the destruction of an error that had become dear to thousands. The writings of the first English freethinkers lack the piquant charm of witty sarcasm so abundantly displayed in Voltaire, but this is amply made up for by their greater truthfulness and dignity in argument. It is the old wisdom of the free man or of the "slave who breaks his bonds."

English freethinkers had had a forerunner in LORD HERBERT OF CHERBURY (1581-1648), whose Latin Essays De Veritate and De religione Gentilium had anticipated much of the "enlightenment" of the eighteenth century. He was the first to reject all revealed religions, which he declared to be "priestly imposture," and taught what was called, a hundred years later, "natural religion."

However, it was not until the end of the political revolution, that is, about the close of the seventeenth century, that Toland and Collins, the two chief founders of "Free Thought," came forward with the deliberate intention of introducing a revolution in religious ideas. Both were earnest, anxious inquirers after truth and seekers after God. They could never have gained so many adherents in England, France, and Germany, had not a vigorous breath of enthusiasm in the cause of truth proceeded from them. If we read in succession the philosophical religious writings of the seventeenth (Cherbury and Hobbes excepted) and of the commencement of the eighteenth century, we are conscious for the first time, in Toland, Collins, and (somewhat later) Tindal, of an atmosphere of the spirit of modern, clear-thinking men. The last mists of medieval prejudice have disappeared; it is clear, early day. At first, only in the case of a few illustrious and enlightened intellects; but these soon become the pillars of fire that led the way for progressive humanity. The light,

kindled nearly two hundred years ago, was never extinguished, but caused fresh beams to blaze up, most clearly in Germany.

At the head of religious freethinkers stands JOHN TOLAND (1670-1722), a precocious, contemplative man. When sixteen years of age (in the reign of the papist James II.), he forsook the Catholic faith, in which he had been born; at twenty-six, after the publication of Locke's Essay on the Reasonableness of Christianity, he published his chief work, Christianity not Mysterious. The essence of the work is the principle: "Reason is the only foundation of all certainty"; that is, it contradicts the belief in revelation. This treatise, mild in form and at first sight not greatly at variance with the general tenets of Christianity, nevertheless contains the germ of all later criticism of revealed religion. If it maintains that the doctrines of Christianity are not inconsistent with reason and that the Gospels contain nothing that is irrational, it also declares that the Bible is only sacred so far as it is everywhere in accordance with reason. The Bible is no longer the foundation of belief, but reason alone; revelation could have announced nothing contrary to reason, nothing which man could not have found out for himself by the aid of his reason.

In his Life of Milton (1699), Tindal made use of the disputed question of the authorship of the apology for Charles I. (Eikōn basilikē, pp. 239 and 254) to draw the conclusion: if writings so modern could create such controversy, what must be the case in regard to the genuineness of the Scriptures?

In his Letters to Serena (1704), Queen Sophia Charlotte of Prussia, he discussed most wittily The origin and force of prejudice and similar philosophical and religious questions. In the preface, he vigorously supported the intellectual equality of women by quite modern arguments.

In his later writings, Toland denied a personal God and finally took refuge in Pantheism. His scarce little book Pantheisticon (1720, printed at "Cosmopolis"), published anonymously, contains, amongst other things, a complete Formula celebrandae sodalitatis Socraticae, a kind of ritual for a Socratic Society. This astonishing ritual contains really lofty passages, the charm of which is increased, if we remember that they coincided with the foundation of "Freemasonry," which, as is well known, originated in England about 1720. Toland's activity may be looked upon as having contributed to the rise of the craft.

The terms "Free Thought" and "Freethinker," if not first used by ANTONY COLLINS (1676-1729), an intellectual kinsman of Toland, were certainly brought into more general use by him, particularly in the Discourse of Free-thinking (with the additional title, Occasioned by the Rise and Growth of a Sect called Freethinkers), which appeared

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in 1713. This Essay also is extremely rare. hundred and fifty short pages of a similar nature to Toland's work, only more vigorous in expression; stress is laid upon the rights of reason as opposed to belief prescribed by authority, and revelation, of which man has no need at all, is accordingly rejected. Free thought is the best means to the investigation of truth, religious truth included. All superstition, the imposture of heathen and other priests, only proceeds from the fact that they forbid the laity to think and express their thoughts freely. True religious feeling is impossible without free thought, for only self-acquired conviction is of any value and can alone be justified. Free thought is also an excellent means to drive out the devil: in free-thinking Holland, he and his attendant, trial for witchcraft, have entirely disappeared.

In Collins, as in Toland, we find the conception of revealed religion as "priestly imposture," the unhistorical idea which extended through the whole of the eighteenth century, and even long outlasted the French Revolution.

This free-thought movement, which was also called "Deism," from the idea of God that underlay it, namely, an impersonal, unrevealed God, to a certain extent found its consummation in MATTHEW TINDAL (1676-1733) and his chief work, Christianity as old as the Creation, with the significant sub-title of, The Gospel a Republication of the Religion of Nature (1730). The central idea of this extraordinarily influential book lies in the propositions: "God at all times has given mankind sufficient means of knowing (without revelation!) whatever He requires of them." "The religion of nature consists in observing those things which our reason, by considering the nature of God and man and the relation we stand in to Him and one another, demonstrates to be our duty." This "religion of nature" is the sole true one: all others are only so far justified as they are in harmony with it. Religion and morality are synonymous: "Morality is the end of all religion." Christianity is at bottom nothing new, but only the restoration of natural religion, which had been distorted by paganism and Judaism.

The religious foundation of the "century of enlightenment" was the work of Toland, Collins and Tindal. Ethical writers, especially Antony, EARL OF SHAFTESBURY (1671-1713), developed and supplemented it. His Characteristics of Men, Manners, Opinions and Times (1711) is one of the best productions of eighteenth century moral philosophy, and his intellectual influence, even outside England, was incalculable. Herder was his most important admirer and successor. According to Shaftesbury, religion is not the highest aim of life, but only the means to a virtuous, harmoniously beautiful life. The gist of

his moral philosophy is to be found in the essay, An Inquiry concerning Virtue and Merit (1700).

While Locke's whole doctrine of morality amounts to a wellregulated egotism, Shaftesbury declares enthusiastically against the idea of virtue for a fee derived from revealed religions. In place of virtue that is anxious for a recompense, he would substitute a kind of æsthetic virtue, which is its own reward. There is something Athenian in Shaftesbury's description of a good, because beautiful life. The employment of the terms "the True," "the Good," "the Beautiful," is to be attributed to him. Unrestricted by the doctrines of religions, exempt from times and fashions, he regards virtue as an entirely independent idea, something like the unchangeable laws of artistic beauty. We often think we are reading Plato or a Greek of the Socratic school, when we find this æsthetic idea of the moral aspect of human life developed. "Beautiful" and "Good" are synonymous terms to him. He is the representative of moral optimism; he believes in "the Beautiful" and its victory over "the Ugly"; consequently, he believes in the victory of "the Good." He does not trouble himself with such questions as revelation, the genuineness of the Bible and the like. It is remarkable to observe how nearly Shaftesbury approaches quite modern tendencies of thought; his reverence for "the Beautiful" as the substitute for the current religion, at least for the more highly cultured, is essentially the same as that which David Strauss has indicated as the religion of the future.

One thing lends special attractiveness to Shaftesbury's writings, the happy combination of dignity and humour. Why should not serious questions be discussed in an agreeable, even a jesting manner? One of his sayings is: "The ridiculous is the proof of truth." In this sense he writes, in his splendid Letter concerning Enthusiasm (i.e. religious enthusiasm): "Provided we treat religion with good manners, we can never use too much good humour. . . . For if it be genuine and sincere, it will not only stand the proof, but thrive and gain advantage from hence; if it be spurious or mixed with any imposture, it will be detected and exposed."

However vigorously he supports the right of free religious criticism, malicious love of ridicule is repugnant to him. As if he had foreseen Voltaire and the school of the encyclopædists in France, he writes in his Essay on the Freedom of Wit and Humour, or Sensus Communis : "If men are forbid to speak their minds seriously on certain subjects, they will do it ironically. If they are forbid to speak at all upon such subjects, or if they find it really dangerous for 'em to do so, they will then redouble their disguise. . . . And thus raillery is brought more in fashion and runs into an extreme. 'Tis the persecuting spirit has