A Short History of Freethought Ancient and Modern, Volume 2 of 2 by J. M. Robertson

world. In Austria, despite a certain amount of French culture, the rule of the Jesuits in the eighteenth century was too effective to permit of any intellectual developments. Maria Theresa, who knew too well that the boundless sexual licence against which she fought had nothing to do with innovating ideas, had to issue a special order to permit the importation of Montesquieu's Esprit des Lois; and works of more subversive doctrine could not openly pass the frontiers at all. An attempt to bring Lessing to Vienna in 1774, with a view to founding a new literary Academy, collapsed before the opposition; and when Prof. Jahn, of the Vienna University--described as "freethinking, latitudinarian, anti-supernaturalistic"--developed somewhat anti-clerical tendencies in his teaching and writing, he was forced to resign, and died a simple Canon. [1488] The Emperor Joseph II in his day passed for an unbeliever; [1489] but there was no general movement. "Austria, in a time of universal effervescence, produced only musicians, and showed zest only for pleasure." [1490] Yet among the music-makers was the German-born Beethoven, the greatest master of his age. Kindred in spirit to Goethe, and much more of a revolutionist than he in all things, Beethoven spent the creative part of his life at Vienna without ceasing to be a freethinker. [1491] "Formal religion he apparently had none." He copied out a kind of theistic creed consisting of three ancient formulas: "I am that which is": "I am all that is, that was, that shall be": "He is alone by Himself; and to Him alone do all things owe their being." Beyond this his beliefs did not go. When his friend Moscheles at the end of his arrangement of Fidelio wrote: "Fine, with God's help," Beethoven added, "O man, help thyself." [1492] His reception of the Catholic sacraments in extremis was not his act. He had left to mankind a purer and a more lasting gift than either the creeds or the philosophies of his age.