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

Chronology; two treatises on prophecy; an anti-Athanasian Essay on Spirit (1751), which aroused much controversy; A Vindication of the Histories of the Old and New Testament, in answer to Bolingbroke (2 vols. 1752-1754; 2nd ed. 1757; rep. with the Essay on Spirit, Dublin, 1759), which led to his being prosecuted; and other works. The offence given by the Vindication lay in his denunciation of the Athanasian creed, and of the bigotry of those who supported it. See pt. iii, letters i and ii. The Essay on Spirit is no less heterodox. In other respects, however, Clayton is ultra-orthodox. [860] Dr. G. W. Alberti, Briefe betreffende den Zustand der Religion in Gross-Brittannien, Hannover, 1752, p. 440. [861] Above, p. 180. [862] Put by Huarte in 1575. Above, i, 472. [863] Inquiry, p. 162. [864] Inquiry, pref. pp. x, xxii. [865] A Letter to the Rev. Dr. Conyers Middleton, occasioned by his late "Free Inquiry," 1749, pp. 3-4. [866] A Free Answer to Dr. Middleton's "Free Inquiry," by William Dodwell [son of the elder and brother of the younger Henry], Rector of Shottesbrook, 1749, pp. 14-15. [867] Inquiry, p. 162. [868] Works, 2nd ed. 1755, ii, 348. [869] Cp. essay on Mandeville, in the author's Pioneer Humanists, 1907. [870] As against the objections of Mr. Lang, see the author's paper in Studies in Religious Fallacy. [871] Cp. the summary of Farrar, Crit. Hist. of Freethought, pp. 177-78, which is founded on that of Pusey's early Historical Enquiry concerning German Rationalism, pp. 124-26. [872] Rep. same year at Dublin: 2nd ed. 1750. The first ed. was ascribed to D'Argens--an error caused though not justified by the publisher's notice. [873] The point is further discussed in Dynamics of Religion, pp. 175-76. [874] Cp. G. B. Hertz, The Old Colonial System, 1905, pp. 4, 22, 93, 157. [875] Letter xxxi, in Mason's Memoir. [876] Hill Burton's Life of Hume, ii, 433, 434, 484-85, 487. [877] Compare the verdicts of Gibbon in his Autobiography, and of Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations, bk. v, ch. i, art. 2; and see the memoir of Smith in 1831 ed. and McCulloch's ed., and Rae's Life of Adam Smith, p. 24. It appears that about 1764 many English people sent their sons to Edinburgh University on account of the better education there. Letter of Blair, in Burton's Life of Hume, ii, 229. [878] Essays, iv, end. [879] Present State of Polite Learning, 1765, ch. vi. His story of how the father of St. Foix cured the youth of the desire to rationalize his creed is not suggestive of conviction. The father pointed to a crucifix, saying, "Behold the fate of a reformer." The story has been often plagiarized since--e.g., in Galt's Annals of the Parish. [880] Abbey and Overton, The English Church in the Eighteenth Century, 1878, ii, 37. [881] Dieu et les Hommes, ch. xxxix. [882] Cp. Bishop Law, Considerations on the Theory of Religion, 6th ed. 1774, p. 65, note, and the Analysis of Bolingbroke's writings (1755) there cited. Mr. Sichel's reply to Sir L. Stephen's criticism may or may not be successful; but he does not deal with Bishop Law's. [883] Mémoires de Diderot, ed. 1841, ii, 25. [884] These had begun as early as 1753 (Micromégas). [885] Works, ed. 1842, i, pp. cix, 445; ii, 628, 728. Cp. the poem Kew Gardens, left in MS. [886] I here take a few sentences from my paper, The Church and Education, 1903. [887] Short History, p. 717. The Concise Description of the Endowed Grammar Schools, by Nicholas Carlisle, 1818, shows that schools were founded in all parts of the country by private bequest or public action during the eighteenth century. [888] Collis, in Transactions of the Social Science Association, 1857, p. 126. According to Collis, 48 had been founded by James I, 28 under Charles I, 16 under the Commonwealth, 36 under Charles II, 4 under James II, 7 under William and Mary, 11 under Anne, 17 under George I, and 7 under George II. He does not indicate their size. [889] Green, as last cited. [890] Gibbins, Industrial History of England, 1894, p. 151. [891] Hist. of England under George III, ed. 1865, ii, 83. [892] The document is given in Ritchie's Life of Hume, 1807, pp. 53-55. [893] A reply, The World proved to be not eternal nor mechanical, appeared in 1790. [894] The Doctrines of a Trinity and the Incarnation of God was published anonymously. [895] See the Biographical Introduction to the Unitarian reprint of Watts's Solemn Address, 1840, which gives the letters of Lardner. And cp. Skeats, Hist. of the English Free Churches, ed. Miall, p. 240. [896] Life of Lardner, by Dr. Kippis, prefixed to Works, ed. 1835, i, p. xxxii. [897] Memoirs of Priestley, 1806, pp. 30-32, 35, 37. The Letter on the Logos was addressed by Lardner to the first Lord Barrington, and was first published anonymously, in 1759. [898] Memoirs of Priestley, p. 19. [899] Pamphlet of 1778, printing the sermon, with reply to a local attack. [900] MS. alteration in print. See also p. 1 of Epistle Dedicatory. [901] In criticizing whom Sir Leslie Stephen barely notices his scientific work, but dwells much on his religious fallacies--a course which would make short work of the fame of Newton. [902] A Church dignitary has described Evanson's Dissonance as "the commencement of the destructive criticism of the Fourth Gospel" (Archdeacon Watkins's Bampton Lectures, 1890, p. 174). [903] Williams (d. 1816), who published 3 vols. of "Lectures on Education" and other works, has a longer claim on remembrance as the founder of the "Literary Fund." [904] The subject is discussed at length in the essay on Gibbon in the author's Pioneer Humanists. [905] Cp. Bishop Watson's Apology for Christianity (1776) as to the vogue of unbelief at that date. (Two Apologies, ed. 1806, p. 121. Cp. pp. 179, 399.) [906] The panegyric on Voltaire delivered at his death by Frederick the Great (Nov. 26, 1778) was promptly translated into English (1779). [907] Reflections on the French Revolution, 1790, p. 131. [908] See Hannah More's letter of April, 1777, in her Life, abridged 16mo-ed. p. 36. An edition of Shaftesbury, apparently, appeared in 1773, and another in 1790. [909] The essays of Hume, including the Dialogues concerning Natural Religion (1779), were now circulated in repeated editions. Mr. Rae, in his valuable Life of Adam Smith, p. 311, cites a German observer, Wendeborn, as writing in 1785 that the Dialogues, though a good deal discussed in Germany, had made no sensation in England, and were at that date entirely forgotten. But a second edition had been called for in 1779, and they were added to a fresh edition of the essays in 1788. Any "forgetting" is to be set down to preoccupation with other interests. [910] Letter to the Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry, 1777, p. 3. [911] Dr. Parr, Characters of C. J. Fox, i, 220; cited in Charles James Fox, a Commentary, by W. S. Landor, ed. by S. Wheeler, 1907, p. 147. Fox's secretary and biographer, Trotter, while anxious to discredit the statement of Parr, gives such a qualified account (Memoirs of the Latter Years of C. J. Fox, 1811, pp. 470-71) of Fox's views on immortality as to throw much doubt on the stronger testimony of B. C. Walpole (Recollections of C. J. Fox, 1806, p. 242). [912] See J. L. Le B. Hammond, Charles James Fox, 1903, ch. xiii. [913] See a letter in Bishop Watson's Life, i, 402; and cp. Buckle, ch. vii, note 218. [914] See his Task, bk. iii, 150-90 (1783-1784), for the prevailing religious tone. [915] Princ. of Moral Philos. bk. v, ch. ix. The chapter tells of widespread freethinking. [916] Ernest Krause, Erasmus Darwin, Eng. tr. 1879, p. 211. Cp. pp. 193, 194. [917] Letters vii, viii, ix, xix, xxii. [918] E.g., The Ordination, the Address to the Deil, A Dedication to Gavin Hamilton, The Kirk's Alarm, etc. [919] See also the pieces printed between these in the Globe edition, pp. 66-68. [920] The benevolent Supreme Being, he writes, "has put the immediate administration of all this into the hands of Jesus Christ--a great personage, whose relation to Him we cannot fathom, but whose relation to us is [that of] a guide and Saviour." Letter 86 in Globe ed. Letters 189 and 197, to Mrs. Dunlop, similarly fail to meet the requirements of the orthodox correspondent. The poem Look up and See, latterly printed several times apart from Burns's works, and extremely likely to be his, is a quite Voltairean criticism of David. If the poem be ungenuine, it is certainly by far the ablest of the unacknowledged pieces ascribed to him, alike in diction and in purport. [921] Letter to Mrs. Dunlop, Jan. 1, 1789, in Robert Burns and Mrs. Dunlop, ed. by W. Wallace, 1898, p. 129. The passage is omitted from Letter 168 in the Globe ed., and presumably from other reprints. [922] Letter to Mrs. Dunlop, July 9, 1790. Published for the first time in vol. cited, p. 266. [923] Epistle to a Young Friend. [924] Lecky, writing in 1865, and advancing on Burke, has said of the whole school, including Shaftesbury, that "the shadow of the tomb rests on all: a deep, unbroken silence, the chill of death, surrounds them. They have long ceased to wake any interest" (Rationalism in Europe, i, 116). As a matter of fact, they had been discussed by Taylor in 1853; by Pattison in 1860; and by Farrar in 1862; and they have since been discussed at length by Dr. Hunt, by Dr. Cairns, by Lange, by Gyzicki, by M. Sayous, by Sir Leslie Stephen, by Prof. Höffding, and by many others. [925] Conway, introd. to Age of Reason, in his ed. of Paine's Works, iv, 3. [926] Lemontey, Hist. de la régence et de la minorité de Louis XV, 1835, ii, 358, note. In 1731 there was published under the name of Boulainvilliers (d. 1722) a so-called Réfutation de Spinoza, which was "really a popular exposition." Pollock, Spinoza, 2nd ed. p. 363. Sir F. Pollock assents to Voltaire's remark that Boulainvilliers "gave the poison and forgot to give the antidote." [927] For a brief view of the facts, usually misconceived, see Lanson, pp. 610-11. Fénelon seems to have been uncandid, while Bossuet, by common consent, was malevolent. There is probably truth, however, in the view of Shaftesbury (Characteristics, ed. 1900, ii, 214), that the real grievance of Fénelon's ecclesiastical opponents was the tendency of his mysticism to withdraw devotees from ceremonial duties. [928] Now remembered chiefly through the account of his intercourse with Fénelon (repr. in Didot ed. of Fénelon's misc. works), and Hume's long extract from his Philosophical Principles of Natural and Revealed Religion in the concluding note to the Essays. Cp. M. Matter, Le Mysticisme en France au temps de Fénelon, 1865, pp. 352-54. [929] Tyssot de Patot was Professor of Mathematics at Deventer. In his Lettres choisies, published in 1726, there is an avowal that "he might be charged with having different notions from those of the vulgar in point of religion" (New Memoirs of Literature, iv (1726), 267); and his accounts of pietists and unbelieving and other priests sufficiently convey that impression (id. pp. 268-84). [930] Towards the close of his "poem" Polignac speaks of a defence of Christianity as a future task. He died without even completing the Anti-Lucretius, begun half a century before. Of him are related two classic anecdotes. Sent at the age of twenty-seven to discuss Church questions with the Pope, he earned from His Holiness the compliment: "You seem always to be of my opinion; and in the end it is yours that prevails." Louis XIV gave him a long audience, after which the King said: "I have had an interview with a young man who has constantly contradicted me without my being able to be angry for a moment." (Éloge prefixed to Bougainville's trans., L'Anti-Lucrèce, 1767, i. 131.) [931] Cp. Duvernet, Vie de Voltaire, ch. i. Rivarol (Lettres à Necker, in OEuvres, ed. 1852, p. 138) wrote that under Louis XV there began a "general insurrection" of discussion, and that everybody then talked "only of religion and philosophy during half a century." But this exaggerates the beginnings, of which Rivarol could have no exact knowledge. [932] La verité de la religion chrétienne prouvée par les faits: précédée d'un discours historique et critique sur la méthode des principaux auteurs qui ont écrit pour et contre le christianisme depuis son origine, 1722. Rep. 1741, 3 vols. 4to., 4 vols. 12mo. [933] Nouveau Dictionnaire historique portatif, 1771, art. Houteville, tom. ii. [934] Whose Considérations sur les Moeurs (1751) does not seem to contain a single religious sentiment. Historiographer of France, he had not escaped the suppression of his Histoire de Louis XI, 1745. [935] See above, p. 130. Buffier seems to have begun an attempt at spelling reform (by dropping doubled letters), followed in 1725 by Huard and later by Prémontval. [936] 7 vols. 4to., 10 vols. 12mo. Rep. with corrections 1733. Seconde partie, 1753, 8 vols. 12mo. [937] A reprint in 1735 bears the imprint of London, with the note "Aux dépens de la Compagnie." [938] Lanson, p. 702. The Persian Letters, like the Provincial Letters of Pascal, had to be printed at Rouen and published at Amsterdam. Their freethinking expressions put considerable difficulties in the way of his election (1727) to the Academy. See E. Edwards, Chapters of the Biog. Hist. of the French Academy, 1864, pp. 34-35, and D. M. Robertson, Hist. of the French Academy, 1910, p. 92, as to the mystification about the alleged reprint without the obnoxious passages. [939] Lettre 86. [940] "Au point de vue religieux, Montesquieu tirait poliment son coup de chapeau au christianisme" (Lanson, p. 714). E.g. in the Esprit des Lois, liv. xxiv, chs. i, ii, iii, iv, vi, and the footnote to ch. x of liv. xxv. Montesquieu's letter to Warburton (16 mai, 1754), in acknowledgment of that prelate's attack on the posthumous works of Bolingbroke, is a sample of his social make-believe. But no religious reader could suppose it to come from a religious man. [941] Also of E. Edwards, as cited above. [942] See the notes cited on pp. 405, 407 of Garnier's variorum ed. of the Esprit des Lois, 1871. La Harpe and Villemain seem blind to irony. [943] The flings at Bayle (liv. xxiv, chs. ii, vi) are part of a subtly ironical vindication of ideal as against ecclesiastical Christianity, and they have no note of faith. [944] Paul Mesnard, Hist. de l'académie française, 1857, pp. 61-63. [945] Pensées Diverses: De la religion. [946] Lanson, p. 714, note. [947] Tr. in English, 1753. It is noteworthy that Cataneo formally accepts Montesquieu's professions of orthodoxy. [948] Correspondance littéraire de Grimm et Diderot, ed. 1829-31, i, 273. See the footnote for an account of the indecent efforts of the Jesuits to get at the dying philosopher. The curé of the parish who was allowed entry began his exhortation with: "Vous savez, M. le Président, combien Dieu est grand." "Oui, monsieur," returned Montesquieu, "et combien les hommes sont petits." [949] Mesnard, Hist. de l'académie française, p. 63. [950] A full analysis is given by Strauss in the second Appendix to his Voltaire: Sechs Vorträge, 2te Aufl. 1870. [951] The details are dubious. See the memoir compiled by "Rudolf Charles" (R. C. D'Ablaing van Giessenburg), the editor of the Testament, Amsterdam, 3 tom. 1861-64. It draws chiefly on the Mémoires secrets de Bachaumont, under date Sept. 30, 1764. [952] Testament, as cited, i, 25. [953] iii, 396. [954] First published in 1762 [or 1764? See Bachaumont, Oct. 30], with the date 1742; and reprinted in the Évangile de la Raison,