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

most of the Swedish clergy in the middle of the eighteenth century so far outwent even that of the English Church that the laity were left to themselves; while "gentlemen disdained the least taint of religion, and except on formal occasions would have been ashamed to be caught church-going." [1533] But this was a matter rather of fashion than of freethought; and there is little trace of critical life in the period. In the latter part of the eighteenth century, doubtless, the aristocracies and the cultured class in the Scandinavian States were influenced like the rest of Europe by the spirit of French freethought, [1534] which everywhere followed the vogue of the French language and literature. Thus we find Gustavus III of Sweden, an ardent admirer of Voltaire, defending him in company, and proposing in 1770, before the death of his father prevented it, to make a pilgrimage to Ferney. [1535] It is without regard to this testimony that Gustavus, who was assassinated, is said to have died "with the fortitude and resignation of a Christian." [1536] He was indeed flighty and changeable, [1537] and after growing up a Voltairean was turned for a year or two into a credulous mystic, the dupe of pseudo-Swedenborgian charlatans; [1538] but there is small sign of religious earnestness in his fashion of making his dying confession. [1539] Claiming at an earlier date to believe more than Joseph II, who in his opinion "believed in nothing at all," he makes light of their joint parade of piety at Rome, [1540] and seems to have been at bottom a good deal of an indifferentist. During his reign his influence on literature fostered a measure of the spirit of freethought in belles lettres; and in the poets J. H. Kjellgren and J. M. Bellman (both d. 1795) there is to be seen the effect of the German Aufklärung and the spirit of Voltaire. [1541] Their contemporary, Tomas Thoren, who called himself Torild (d. 1812), though more of an innovator in poetic style than in thought, wrote among other things a pamphlet on The Freedom of the General Intelligence. But Torild's nickname, "the mad magister," tells of his extravagance; and none of the Swedish belletrists of that age amounted to a European influence. Finally, in the calamitous period which followed on the assassination of Gustavus III, all Swedish culture sank heavily. The desperate energies of Charles XII had left his country half-ruined in 1718; and even while Linnæus and his pupils were building up the modern science of botany in the latter half of the century the economic exhaustion of the people was a check on general culture. The University of Upsala, which at one time had over 2,000 students, counted only some 500 at the close of the eighteenth century. [1542]