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

to the imported English literature of the eighteenth century; for the first Puritan settlements had contained at most only a fraction of freethought; and the conditions, so deadly for all manner even of devout heresy, made avowed unbelief impossible. The superstitions and cruelties of the Puritan clergy, however, must have bred a silent reaction, which prepared a soil for the deism of the next age. [1641] "The perusal of Shaftesbury and Collins," writes Franklin with reference to his early youth, "had made me a skeptic," after being "previously so as to many doctrines of Christianity." [1642] This was in his seventeenth or eighteenth year, about 1720, so that the importation of deism had been prompt. [1643] Throughout life he held to the same opinion, conforming sufficiently to keep on fair terms with his neighbours, [1644] and avoiding anything like critical propaganda; though on challenge, in the last year of his life, he avowed his negatively deistic position. [1645]