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

years had been ended at the accession of Frederick V in 1746. [1543] National literature, revivified by Holberg, was further advanced by the establishment of a society of polite learning in 1763; under Frederick's auspices Danish naturalists and scholars were sent abroad for study; and in particular a literary expedition was sent to Arabia. The European movement of science, in short, had gripped the little kingdom, and the usual intellectual results began to follow, though, as in Catholic Spain, the forces of reaction soon rallied against a movement which had been imposed from above rather than evolved from within. The most celebrated northern unbeliever of the French period was Count Struensee, who for some years (1770-72) virtually ruled Denmark as the favourite of the young queen, the king being half-witted and worthless. Struensee was an energetic and capable though injudicious reformer: he abolished torture; emancipated the enslaved peasantry; secured toleration for all sects; encouraged the arts and industry; established freedom of the press; and reformed the finances, the police, the law courts, and sanitation. [1544] His very reforms, being made with headlong rapidity, made his position untenable, and his enemies soon effected his downfall and death. The young queen, who was not alleged to have been a freethinker, was savagely seized by the hostile faction and put on her trial on a charge of adultery, which being wholly unproved, the aristocratic faction proposed to try her on a charge of drugging her husband. Only by the efforts of the British court was she saved from imprisonment for life in a fortress, and sent to Hanover, where, three years later, she died. She too was a reformer, and it was on that score that she was hated by the nobles. [1545] Both she and Struensee, in short, were the victims of a violent political reaction. There is an elaborate account of Struensee's conversion to Christianity in prison by the German Dr. Munter, [1546] which makes him out by his own confession an excessive voluptuary. It is an extremely suspicious document, exhibiting strong political bias, and giving Struensee no credit for reforms; the apparent assumption being that the conversion of a reprobate was of more evidential value than that of a reputable and reflective type. In spite of the reaction, rationalism persisted among the cultured class. Mary Wollstonecraft, visiting Denmark in 1795, noted that there and in Norway the press was free, and that new French publications were translated and freely discussed. The press had in fact been freed by Struensee, and was left free by his enemies because of the facilities it had given them to attack him. [1547] "On the subject of religion," she added, "they are likewise becoming tolerant, at least, and perhaps have advanced a step further in freethinking. One writer has ventured to deny the divinity of Jesus Christ, and to question the necessity or utility of the Christian system, without being considered universally as a monster, which would have been the case a few years ago." [1548] She likewise noted that there was in Norway very little of the fanaticism she had seen gaining ground, on Wesleyan lines, in England. [1549] But though the Danes had "translated many German works on education," they had "not adopted any of their plans"; there were few schools, and those not good. Norway, again, had been kept without a university under Danish rule; and not until one was established at Christiania in 1811 could Norwegian faculty play its part in the intellectual life of Europe. The reaction, accordingly, soon afterwards began to gain head. Already in 1790 "precautionary measures" had been attempted against the press; [1550] and, these being found inefficient, an edict was issued in 1799 enforcing penalties against all anonymous writers--a plan which of course struck at the publishers. But the great geographer, Malte-Brun, was exiled, as were Heiberg, the dramatic poet, and others; and again there was "a temporary stagnation in literature," which, however, soon passed away in the nineteenth century. Meantime Sweden and Denmark had alike contributed vitally to the progress of European science; though neither had shared in the work of freethought as against dogma. ยง 3. The Slavonic States