The Fate of Thomas Paine,
Our Sexual Ethics,
Freedom and the Colleges
excerpted from the book
Why I Am Not A Christian
and other essays on religion and
related subjects
by Bertrand Russell
Touchstone, 1957, paper
Thomas Paine, though prominent in two
revolutions and almost hanged for attempting to raise a third,
is grown, in our day, somewhat dim. To our greatgrandfathers,
he seemed a kind of earthly Satan, a subversive infidel rebellious
alike against his God and his King. He incurred the bitter hostility
of three men not generally united: Pitt, Robespierre, and Washington.
Of these, the first two sought his death, while the third carefully
abstained from measures designed to save his life. Pitt and Washington
hated him because he was a democrat; Robespierre, because he opposed
the execution of the King and the Reign of Terror. It was his
fate to be always honored by opposition and hated by governments:
Washington, while he was still fighting the English, spoke of
Paine in terms of highest praise; the French nation heaped honors
upon him until the Jacobins rose to power; even in England, the
most prominent Whig statesmen befriended him and employed him
in drawing up manifestoes. He had faults, like other men; but
it was for his virtues that he was hated and successfully calumniated.
Paine's importance in history consists
in the fact that he made the preaching of democracy democratic.
There were, in the eighteenth century,, democrats among French
and English aristocrats, among Philosophes and nonconformist ministers.
But all of them presented their political speculations in a form
designed to appeal only to the educated. Paine, while his doctrine
contained nothing novel, was an innovator in the manner of his
writing, which was simple, direct, unlearned, and such as every
intelligent workingman could appreciate. This made him dangerous;
and when he added religious unorthodoxy to his other crimes, the
defenders of privilege seized the opportunity to load him with
obloquy.
The first thirty-six years of his life
gave no evidence of the talents which appeared in his later activities.
He was born at Thetford in 1739, of poor Quaker parents, and was
educated at the local grammar school up to the age of thirteen,
when he became a stay-maker. A. quiet life, however, was not his
taste, and at the age of seventeen he tried to enlist on a privateer
called The Terrible, whose captain's name was Death. His parents
fetched him back and so probably saved his life, as 175 out of
the crew of 200 were shortly afterward killed in action. A little
later, however, on the outbreak of the Seven Years' War, he succeeded
in sailing on another privateer, but nothing is known of his brief
adventures at sea. In 1758, he was employed as a staymaker in
London, and in the following year he married, but his wife died
after a few months. In 1763 he became an exciseman, but was dismissed
two years later for professing to have made inspections while
he was in fact studying at home. In great poverty, he became a
schoolmaster at ten shillings a week and tried to take Anglican
orders. From such desperate expedients he was saved by being reinstated
as an exciseman at Lewes, where he married a Quakeress from whom,
for reasons unknown, he formally separated in 1774. In this year
he again lost his employment, apparently because he organized
a petition of the excisemen for higher pay. By selling all that
he had, he was just able to pay his debts and leave some provision
for his wife, but he himself was again reduced to destitution.
In London, where he was trying to present the excisemen's petition
to Parliament, he made the acquaintance of Benjamin Franklin,
who thought well of him. The result was that in October 1774 he
sailed for America, armed with a letter of recommendation from
Franklin describing him as an "ingenious, worthy young man."
As soon as he arrived in Philadelphia, he began to show skill
as a writer and almost immediately became editor of a journal.
His first publication, in March 1775, was a forcible article against
slavery and the slave trade, to which, whatever some of his American
friends might say, he remained always an uncompromising enemy.
It seems to have been largely owing to his influence that Jefferson
inserted in the draft of the Declaration of Independence the passage
on this subject which was afterward cut out. In 1775, slavery
still existed in Pennsylvania; it was abolished in that state
by an Act of 1780, of which, it was generally believed, Paine
wrote the preamble. Paine was one of the first, if not the very
first, to advocate complete freedom for the United States. In
October 1775, when even those who subsequently signed the Declaration
of Independence were still hoping for some accommodation with
the British Government, he wrote:
I hesitate not for a moment to believe
that the Almighty will finally separate America from Britain.
Call it Independency or what you will, if it is the cause of God
and humanity it will go on. And when the Almighty shall have blest
us, and made us a people dependent only upon him, then may our
first gratitude be shown by an act of continental legislation,
which shall put a stop to the importation of Negroes for sale,
soften the hard fate of those already here, and in time procure
their freedom.
It was for the sake of freedom-freedom
from monarchy, aristocracy, slavery, and every species of tyranny_
that Paine took up the cause of America.
During the most difficult years of the
War of Independence he spent his days campaigning and his evenings
composing rousing manifestoes published under the signature "Common
Sense." These had enormous success and helped materially
in winning the war. After the British had burned the towns of
Falmouth in Maine and Norfolk in Virginia, Washington wrote to
a friend (January 37, 7776): "A few more of such flaming
arguments as were exhibited at Falmouth and Norfolk, added to
the sound doctrine and unanswerable reasoning contained in the
pamphlet Common Sense, will not leave numbers at a loss to decide
upon the propriety of separation."
The work was topical and. has now only
a historical interest, but there are phrases in it that are still
telling. After pointing out that the quarrel is not only with
the King, but also with Parliament, he says: "There is no
body of men more jealous of their privileges than the Commons:
because they sell them." At that date it was impossible to
deny the justice of this taunt.
There is vigorous argument in favor of
a Republic, and triumphant refutation of the theory that monarchy
prevents civil war. "Monarchy and succession," he says,
after his summary of English history, "have laid . . . the
world in blood and ashes. 'Tis a form of government which the
word of God bears testimony against, and blood will attend it."
In December at a moment when the fortunes of war were adverse,
Paine published a pamphlet called The Crisis, beginning: "These
are the times that try men's souls The summer soldier and the
sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service
of their country; but he that stands it now deserves the love
and thanks of man and woman."
This essay was read to the troops, and
Washington expressed to Paine a "living sense of the importance
of your works." No other writer was so widely read in America,
and he could have made large sums by his pen, but he always refused
to accept any money at all for what he wrote. At the end of the
War of Independence, he was universally respected in the United
States but still poor; however, one state legislature voted him
a sum of money and another gave him an estate, so that he had
every prospect of comfort for the rest of his life. He might have
been expected to settle down into the respectability characteristic
of revolutionaries who have succeeded. He turned his attention
from politics to engineering and demonstrated the, possibility
of iron bridges with longer spans than had previously been thought
feasible. Iron bridges led him to England, where he was received
in a friendly manner by Burke, the Duke of Portland, and other
Whig notables. He had a large model of his iron bridge set up
at Paddington; he was praised by eminent engineers and seemed
likely to spend his remaining years as an inventor.
However, France as well as England was
interested in iron bridges. In 1788 he paid a visit to Paris to
discuss them with Lafayette and to submit his plans to the Academic
des Sciences, which, after due delay, reported favorably. When
the Bastille fell, Lafayette decided to present the key of the
prison to Washington and entrusted to Paine the task of conveying
it across the Atlantic. Paine, however, was kept in Europe by
the affairs of his bridge. He wrote a long letter to Washington
informing him that he would find someone to take his place in
transporting "this early trophy of the spoils of despotism,
and the first ripe fruits of American principles transplanted
into Europe." He goes on to say that "I have not the
least doubt of the final and compleat success of the French Revolution,"
and that "I have manufactured a bridge (a single arch) of
one hundred and ten feet span, and five feet high from the cord
of the arch."
For a time, the bridge and the Revolution
remained thus evenly balanced in his interests, but gradually
the Revolution conquered. In the hope of rousing a responsive
movement in England, he wrote his The Rights of Man on which his
fame as a democrat chiefly rests.
This work, which was considered madly,
subversive during the anti-Jacobin reaction, will astonish a modern
reader by its mildness and common sense. It is primarily an answer
to Burke and deals at considerable length with contemporary events
in France. The first part was published in 1791, the second in
February 1792; there was, therefore, as yet no need to apologize
for the Revolution. There is very little declamation about Natural
Rights, but a great deal of sound sense about the British Government.
Burke had contended that the Revolution of z688 bound the British
for ever to submit to the sovereigns appointed by the Act of Settlement.
Paine contends that it is impossible to bind posterity, and that
constitutions must be capable of revision from time to time.
Governments, he says, "may all be
comprehended under three heads. First, superstition. Secondly,,
power. Thirdly, the common interest of society and the common
rights of man. The first was a government of priestcraft, the
second of conquerors, the third of reason." The two former
amalgamated: "the key of St. Peter and the key of the Treasury
became quartered on one another, and the wondering, cheated multitude
worshiped the invention." Such general observations, however,
are rare. The bulk of the work consists, first, of French history
from 1789 to the end of 1791 and, secondly, of a comparison of
the British Constitution with that decreed in France in 179 ,
of course to the advantage of the latter. It must be remembered
that in 1791 France was still a monarchy. Paine was a republican
and did not conceal the fact, but did not much emphasize it in
The Rights of Man.
Paine's appeal, except in a -few short
passages, was to common sense. He argued against Pitt's finance,
as Cobbett did later, on grounds which ought to have appealed
to any Chancellor of the Exchequer; he described the combination
of a small sinking fund with vast borrowings as setting a man
with a wooden leg to catch a hare-the longer they run, the farther
apart they are. He speaks of the "Potter's field of paper
money"-a phrase quite in Cobbett's style. It was, in fact,
his writings on finance that turned Cobbett's former enmity into
admiration. His objection to the hereditary principle, which horrified
Burke-and Pitt, is now common ground among all politicians, including
even Mussolini and Hitler. Nor is his style in any way outrageous:
it is clear, vigorous, and downright, but not nearly as abusive
as that of his opponents.
Nevertheless, Pitt decided to inaugurate
his reign of terror by prosecuting Paine and suppressing The Rights
of Man. According to his niece, Lady Hester Stanhope, he "used
to say that Tom Paine was quite in the right, but then, he would
add, what am I to do? As things are, if I were to encourage Tom
Paine's opinions we should have a bloody revolution." Paine
replied to the prosecution by defiance and inflammatory speeches.
But the September massacres were occurring, and the English Tories
were reacting by increased fierceness. The poet Blake-who had
more worldly wisdom than Paine-persuaded him that if he stayed
in England he would be hanged. He fled to France, missing the
officers who had come to arrest him by a few hours in London and
by twenty minutes in Dover, where he was allowed by the authorities
to pass because he happened to have with him a recent friendly
letter from Washington.
Although England and France were not yet
at war, Dover and Calais belonged to different worlds. Paine,
who had been elected an honorary French citizen, had been returned
to the Convention by three different constituencies, of which
Calais, which now welcomed him, was one. "As the packet sails
in, a salute is fired from the battery; cheers sound along the
shore. As the representative for Calais steps on French soil soldiers
make his avenue, the officers embrace him, the national cockade
is presented"-and so on through the usual French series of
beautiful ladies, mayors, etc.
Arrived in Paris, he behaved with more
public spirit than prudence. He hoped-in spite of the massacres-for
an orderly and moderate revolution such as he had helped to make
in America. He made friends with the Girondins, refused to think
ill of Lafayette (now in disgrace), and continued, as an American,
to express gratitude to Louis XVI for his share in liberating
the United States. By opposing the King's execution down to the
last moment, be incurred the hostility of the Jacobins. He was
first expelled from the Convention and then imprisoned as a foreigner;
he remained in prison throughout Robespierre's period of power
and for some months longer. The responsibility rested only partly
with the French; the American Minister, Gouverneur Morris, was
equally to blame. He was a Federalist and sided with England against
France; he had, moreover, an ancient personal grudge against Paine
for exposing a friend's corrupt deal during the War of Independence.
He took the line that Paine was not an American and that he could
therefore do nothing for him. Washington, who was secretly -negotiating
Jay's treaty with England, was not sorry to have Paine in a situation
in which he could not enlighten the French Government as to reactionary
opinion in America. Paine escaped the guillotine by accident but
nearly died of illness. At last Morris was replaced by Monroe
(of the "Doctrine"), who immediately procured his release,
took him into his own house, and restored him to health by eighteen
months' care and kindness.
Paine did not know how great a part Morris
had played in his misfortunes, but he never forgave Washington,
after whose death, hearing that a statue was to be made of the
great man, he addressed the following lines to the sculptor:
Take from the mine the coldest, hardest
stone,
It needs no fashion: it is Washington.
But if you chisel, let the stroke be rude,
And on his heart engrave-Ingratitude.
This remained unpublished, but a long,
bitter letter to Washington was published in 1796, ending:
And as to you, Sir, treacherous in private
friendship (for so you have been to me, and that in the day of
danger) and a hypocrite in public life, the world will be puzzled
to decide whether you are an apostate or an impostor; whether
you have abandoned good principles, or whether you ever had any.
To those who know only the statuesque
Washington of the legend, these may seem wild words. But 1796
was the year of the first contest for the Presidency, between
Jefferson and Adams, in which Washington's whole weight was thrown
into support of the latter, in spite of his belief in monarchy
and aristocracy; moreover, Washington was taking sides with England
against France and doing all in his power to prevent the spread
of those republican and democratic principles to which he owed
his own elevation. These public grounds, combined with a very
grave personal grievance, show that Paine's words were not without
justification.
It might have been more difficult for
Washington to leave Paine languishing in prison if that rash man
had not spent his last days of liberty in giving literary expression
to the theological opinions which he and Jefferson shared with
Washington and Adams, who, however, were careful to avoid all
public avowals of unorthodoxy. Foreseeing his imprisonment, Paine
set to work to write The Age of Reason, of which he finished Part
1 six hours before his arrest This book shocked his contemporaries,
even many of those who agreed with his politics. Nowadays, apart
from a few passages in bad taste, there is very little that most
clergymen would disagree with. In the first chapter he says:
I believe in one God, and no more; and
I hope for happiness beyond this life.
I believe in the equality of man, and I believe that religious
duties consist in doing justice, loving mercy, and endeavoring
to make our fellow creatures happy.
These were not empty words. From the moment
of his first participation in public affairs-his protest against
slavery in 1775---down to the day of his death, he was consistently
opposed to every form of cruelty, whether practiced by his own
party or by his opponents. The Government of England at that time
was a ruthless oligarchy, using Parliament as a means of lowering
the standard of life in the poorest classes; Paine advocated political
reform as the only cure for this abomination and had to fly for
his life. In France, for opposing unnecessary bloodshed, he was
thrown into prison and narrowly escaped death. In America, for
opposing slavery and upholding the principles of the Declaration
of Independence, he was abandoned by the Government at the moment
when he most needed its support. If, as he maintained and as many
now believe, true religion consists in "doing justice, loving
mercy, and endeavoring to make our fellow creatures happy,"
there was not one among his opponents who had as good a claim
t: J be considered a religious man.
The greater part of The Age of Reason
consists of criticism of the Old Testament from a moral point
of view. Very few nowadays would regard the massacres of men,
women, and children recorded in the Pentateuch and the Book of
Joshua as models of righteousness, but in Paine's day it was considered
impious to criticize the Israelites when the Old Testament approved
of them. Many pious divines wrote answers to him. The most liberal
of those was the Bishop of Liandaff, who went so far as to admit
that parts of the Pentateuch were not written by Moses, and some
of the Psalms were not composed by David. For such concessions
he incurred the hostility of George III and lost all chance of
translation to a richer see. Some of the Bishop's replies to Paine
are curious For example, The Age of Reason ventured to doubt whether
God really commanded that all males and married women among the
Midianites should be slaughtered, while the maidens should be
preserved. The Bishop indignantly retorted that the maidens were
not preserved for immoral purposes, as Paine had wickedly suggested,
but as slaves, to which there could be no ethical objection. The
orthodox of our day have forgotten what orthodoxy was like a hundred
and forty years ago. They have forgotten still more completely
that it was men like Paine who, in face of persecution, caused
the softening of dogma by which our age profits. Even the Quakers
refused Paine's request for burial in their cemetery, although
a Quaker farmer was one of the very few who followed his body
to the grave.
After The Age of Reason Paine's work ceased
to be important. For a long time he was very ill; when he recovered,
he found no scope in the France of the Directoire and the First
Consul. Napoleon did not ill-treat him, but naturally had no use
for him, except as a possible agent of democratic rebellion in
England. He became homesick for America, remembering his former
success and popularity in that country and wishing to help the
Jeffersonians against the Federalists. But the fear of capture
by the English, who would certainly have hanged him, kept him
in France until the Treaty of Amiens. At length, in October 1802,
he landed at Baltimore and at once wrote to Jefferson (now President):
I arrived here on Saturday from Havre,
after a passage of sixty days. I have several cases of models,
wheels, etc., and as soon as I can get them from the vessel and
put them on board the packet for Georgetown I shall set off to
pay my respects to you. Your much obliged fellow citizen,
THOMAS PAINE
He had no doubt that all his old friends,
except such as were Federalists, would welcome him. But there
was a difficulty: Jefferson had a hard fight for the Presidency,
and in the campaign the most effective weapon against him unscrupulously
used by ministers of all denominations had been the accusation
of infidelity. His opponents magnified his intimacy with Paine
and spoke of the pair as "the two Toms." Twenty years
later, Jefferson was still so much impressed by the bigotry of
his compatriots that he replied to a Unitarian minister who wished
to publish a letter of his: "No, my dear Sir, not for the
world! . . . I should as soon undertake to bring the crazy skulls
of Bedlam to sound understanding as to inculcate reason into that
of an Athanasian . . . keep me therefore from the fire and faggot
of Calvin and his victim. Servetus." It was not surprising
that, when the fate of Servetus threatened them, Jefferson and
his political followers should have fought shy of too close an
association with Paine. He was treated politely and had no cause
to complain, but the old easy friendships were dead.
In other circles he fared worse. Dr. Rush
of Philadelphia, one of his first American friends, would have
nothing to do with him: ". . . his principles" he wrote,
"avowed in his Age of Reason, were so offensive to me that
I did not wish to renew my intercourse with him." In his
own neighborhood, he was mobbed and refused a seat in the stagecoach;
three years before his death he was not allowed to vote, on the
alleged ground of his being a foreigner. He was falsely accused
of immorality and intemperance, and his last years were spent
in solitude and poverty. He died in 1809. As he was dying, two
clergymen invaded his room and tried to convert him, but he merely
said, "Let me alone; good morning!" Nevertheless, the
orthodox invented a myth of deathbed recantation which was widely
believed.
His posthumous fame was greater in England
than in America. To publish his works was, of course, illegal,
but it was done repeatedly, although many men went to prison for
this offense. The last prosecution on this charge was that of
Richard Carlile and his wife in 1819 he was sentenced to prison
for three years and a fine of fifteen hundred pounds, she to one
year and five hundred pounds. It was in this year that Cobbett
brought Paine's bones to England and established his fame as one
of the heroes in the fight for democracy in England. Cobbett did
not, however, give his bones a permanent resting place. "The
monument contemplated by Cobbett," says Moncure Conway,*
"was never raised." There was much parliamentary and
municipal excitement. A Bolton town crier was imprisoned nine
weeks for proclaiming the arrival. In 1836 the bones passed with
Cobbett's effects into the hands of a receiver (West). The Lord
Chancellor refusing to regard them as an asset, they were kept
by an old day laborer until 1844, when they passed to B. Tilley,
13 Bedford Square, London, a furniture dealer. In 1854, Rev. R.
Ainslie (Unitarian) told E. Truelove that he owned "the skull
and the right hand of Thomas Paine," but evaded subsequent
inquiries. No trace now remains, even of the skull and right hand.
Paine's influence in the world was twofold.
During the American Revolution he inspired enthusiasm and confidence,
and thereby did much to facilitate victory. In France his popularity
was transient and superficial, but in England he inaugurated the
stubborn resistance of plebeian Radicals to the long tyranny of
Pitt and Liverpool. His opinions on the Bible, though they shocked
his contemporaries more than his Unitarianism, were such as might
now be held by an archbishop, but his true followers were the
men who worked in the movements that sprang from him those whom
Pitt imprisoned, those who suffered under the Six Acts, the Owenites,
Chartists, Trade-Unionists, and Socialists. To all these champions
of the oppressed he set an example of courage, humanity, and single-mindedness.
When public issues were involved, he forgot personal prudence.
The world decided, as it usually does in such cases, to punish
him for his lack of self-seeking; to this day his fame is less
than it would have been if his character had been less generous.
Some worldly wisdom is required even to secure praise for the
lack of it.
***
Our Sexual Ethics
p171
... it is unlikely that a person without previous sexual experience,
whether man or woman, will be able to distinguish between mere
physical attraction and the sort of congeniality that is necessary
in order to make marriage a success. Moreover, economic causes
compel men, as a rule, to postpone marriage, and it is neither
likely that they will remain chaste in the years from twenty to
thirty nor desirable psychologically that they should do 50; but
it is much better that, if they have temporary relations, that
they should be not with professionals but with girls of their
own class, whose motive is affection rather than money. For both
these reasons, young unmarried people should have considerable
freedom as long as children are avoided.
... divorce should be possible without
blame to either party and should not be regarded as in any way
disgraceful. A childless marriage should be terminable at the
wish of one of the partners, and any marriage should be terminable
by mutual consent-a year's notice being necessary in either case.
Divorce should, of course, be possible on a number of other grounds-insanity,
desertion, cruelty, and so on; but mutual consent should be the
most usual ground.
... everything possible should be done
to free sexual relations from the economic taint. At present,
wives, just as much as prostitutes, live by the sale of their
sexual charms; and even in temporary free relations the man is
usually expected to bear all the joint expenses. The result is
that there is a sordid entanglement of money with sex, and that
women's motives not infrequently have a mercenary element. Sex,
even when blessed by the church, ought not to be a profession.
It is right that a woman should be paid for housekeeping or cooking
or the care of children, but not merely for having sexual relations
with a man. Nor should a woman who has once loved and been loved
by a man be able to live ever after on alimony when his love and
hers have ceased. A woman, like a man, should work for her living,
and an idle wife is no more intrinsically worthy of respect than
a gigolo.
***
Freedom and the Colleges
p181
The technique for dealing with men whose opinions are disliked
by certain groups of powerful individuals has been well perfected
and is a great danger to ordered progress. If the man concerned
is still young and comparatively obscure, his official superiors
may be induced to accuse him of professional incompetence, and
he may be quietly dropped. With older men who are too well known
for this method to be successful, public hostility is stirred
up by means of misrepresentation.
p182
The principle of liberal democracy, which inspired the founders
of the American Constitution, was that controversial questions
should be decided by argument rather than by force. Liberals have
always held that opinions should be formed by untrammeled debate,
not by allowing only one side to be heard. Tyrannical governments,
both ancient and modern, have taken the opposite view.
p182
The fundamental difference between the liberal and the illiberal
outlook is that the former regards all questions as open to discussion
and all opinions as open to a greater or less measure of doubt,
while the latter holds in advance that. certain opinions are absolutely
unquestionable, and that no argument against them must be allowed
to be heard.
p183
I have no doubt in my mind that democracy is the best form of
government, but it may go as much astray as any other form in
regard to the functions of government. There are certain matters
on which common action is necessary; as to these, the common action
should be decided by the majority. There are other matters on
which a common decision is neither necessary nor desirable. These
matters include the sphere of opinion. Since there is a natural
tendency for those who have power to exercise it to the utmost,
it is a necessary safeguard against tyranny that there should
be institutions and organized bodies which possess, either in
practice or in theory, a certain limited independence of the state.
p186
There is perhaps a special danger in democratic abuses of power-namely,
that being collective they are stimulated by mob hysteria. The
man who has the art of arousing the witch-hunting instincts of
the mob has a quite peculiar power for evil in a democracy where
the habit of the exercise of power by the majority has produced
that intoxication and impulse to tyranny which the exercise of
authority almost invariably produces sooner or later. Against
this danger the chief protection is a sound education designed
to combat the tendency to irrational eruptions of collective hate.
Such an education the bulk of university teachers desire to give,
but their masters in the plutocracy and the hierarchy make it
as difficult as possible for-them. to carry out this task effectively.
For it is to the irrational passions of the mass that these men
owe their power, and they know that they would fall if the power
of rational thinking became common. Thus the interlocking power
of stupidity below and love of power above paralyzes the efforts
of rational men. Only through a greater measure of academic freedom
than has yet been achieved in the public educational institutions
of this country can this evil be averted.
p190
... [Alexis] De Tocqueville is right in what he says about the
power of society over the individual in a democracy:
When the inhabitant of a democratic country
compares himself individually with all those about him, he feels
with pride that he is the equal of any one of them; but when he
comes to survey the totality of his fellows, and to place himself
in contrast to so huge a body, he is instantly overwhelmed by
the sense of his own insignificance and weakness. The same quality
which renders him independent of each of his fellow citizens,
taken severally, exposes him alone and unprotected to the influence
of the greater number. The public has therefore among a democratic
people a singular power, of which aristocratic nations could never
so much as conceive an idea; for it does not persuade to certain
opinions, but it enforces them, and infuses them into the faculties
by a sort of enormous pressure of the minds of all upon the reason
of each.
The diminution in the stature of the individual
through the hugeness of the Leviathan has, since De Tocqueville's
day, taken enormous strides, not only, and not chiefly, in democratic
countries. It is a most serious menace to the world of Western
civilization and is likely, if unchecked, to bring intellectual
progress to an end. For all serious intellectual progress depends
upon a certain kind of independence of outside opinion, which
cannot exist where the will of the majority is treated with that
kind of religious respect which the orthodox give to the will
of God. A respect for the will of the majority is more harmful
than respect for the will of God, because the will of the majority
can be ascertained.
***
Can Religion Cure Our Troubles? (1954)
p203
That the world is in a bad way is undeniable, but there is not
the faintest reason in history to suppose that Christianity offers
a way out. Our troubles have sprung, with the inexorability of
Greek tragedy, from the First World War, of which the Communists
and the Nazis were products. The First World War was wholly Christian
in origin. The three emperors were devout, and so were the more
warlike of the British Cabinet. Opposition to the war came, in
Germany and Russia, from the Socialists, who were antiChristian;
in France, from Jaurès, whose assassin was applauded by
earnest Christians; in England, from John Morley, a noted atheist.
The most dangerous features of Communism are reminiscent of the
medieval church. They consist of fanatical acceptance of doctrines
embodied in a sacred book, unwillingness to examine these doctrines
critically, and savage persecution of those who reject them.
Why
I Am Not A Christian
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