 Welcome to George H. Smith's Excursions into Libertarian Thought, a production of Libertarianism.org and the Cato Institute. Narrated by Daniel Highland. Free Thought and Freedom. Introduction. As many of my readers know, I have written three books on atheism. The best known being Atheism, The Case Against God, 1974, which I wrote in my early twenties. My two subsequent books, Atheism, Ein Rand and Other Heresies, 1991, and Why Atheism, 2000, contain considerable material on the history of free thought, some of which I will also cover in this series. But my primary purpose in this series is not to defend any particular position on religion, but rather to explore the relationship between free thought and ideas about freedom, especially those found in various strands of the libertarian tradition, such as radical wiggism, republicanism, and 19th century classical liberalism. I mention my books on atheism because I wish to acknowledge the personal bias that may crop up in this series. Although I shall not focus on religious controversies per se, it is necessary in many cases to explain the beliefs of free thinkers that frequently subjected them to legal persecution. And in doing this, it will usually be apparent where my sympathies lie. I have long maintained that historians who write about an intellectual tradition and who have strong personal beliefs about the controversies in that tradition should inform readers upfront about their personal beliefs so that readers may assess for themselves whether personal bias has influenced the objectivity of the historian. Most modern historians, unfortunately, decline to do this, apparently thinking that any such admission would reflect on them unfavorably. Modern historians will almost always present themselves as objective, but part of objectivity, in my judgment, is transparency about one's own point of view. This is not to say that modern historians deliberately slant their accounts. This rarely happens, at least among better historians, but bias rarely exhibits itself overtly. Rather, it is in the tacit judgments of historians, as when they decide which material is worth discussing or which advocates of a given position are important enough to be discussed, that personal bias takes its toll. I therefore believe that historians, especially historians of ideas, should acknowledge their personal beliefs and then strive for objectivity within that framework. This preliminary alert is a matter of common courtesy at the very least, since it permits readers to assess for themselves whether or not a particular historical account has been skewed, however inadvertently, by the historian. When I became active in the libertarian movement during the late 1960s, Ein Rand was a dominant influence, so many libertarians identified themselves as atheists. The other major influence, Murray Rothbard, also called himself an atheist, though he was sympathetic to the Catholic tradition of scholasticism. As the movement grew, however, so did the mix of religious beliefs, and today, Christian libertarians are quite common. I regard this as a positive development. Although early libertarian free thinkers were highly critical of Christianity, especially since many of them suffered imprisonment or worse from Christian governments, there has also been an important strain of Christian libertarianism since the 17th century. British nonconformists in particular, especially Congregationalists, Baptists and Quakers, were among the most consistent advocates of libertarian principles. In British liberalism, we see a strong coalition of non-believers and believers fighting for the same causes, such as free trade, private property, limited government, religious freedom, and freedom of speech and press. The classical liberals included Congregationalists, e.g. Edward Meall, editor of the nonconformist, and Edward Baines, Jr., editor of the Leeds Mercury. Quakers, e.g. John Bright and Samuel Morley, a prominent figure in the anti-slavery movement. Baptists, e.g. Thomas Price, editor of the Eclectic Review. Anglicans, Richard Cobden, and Reverend Thomas Spencer, the uncle of Herbert Spencer. Unitarians, e.g. the minister Joseph Priestly. Agnostics, e.g. Herbert Spencer and the historian John Morley. And atheists, e.g. the historian George Groot, a colleague of Jeremy Bentham, who was probably an atheist himself. And Charles Bradlaw, the most infamous atheist of the Victorian era. Although modern free-thought organizations typically slant to the political left, this trend, generally speaking, did not begin until the late 19th century. Before then, free-thinkers were closely affiliated with libertarian ideas and causes, and this is the tradition that I will discuss in this series. Unfortunately, even many modern libertarians are unaware of important figures in this tradition. True, they may be familiar with the better-known names, such as the deist Voltaire, the atheist Denis Diderot, and other luminaries of the French Enlightenment. But important British liberals, such as the deist John Toland, and the atheist Richard Carlisle, remain obscure and barely known, if known at all. As the tide of socialism grew in Victorian England, a number of prominent free-thinkers and atheists spoke out against it. We see this in debates that occurred within the free-thought movement. For example, the atheist G.W. Foot, a classical liberal and editor of The Free Thinker, who was imprisoned for blasphemy, debated the socialist free-thinker Annie Basant on the topic Is Socialism Sound, 1887? A debate that consumed four evenings. Likewise, Charles Bradlaw, editor of The Free-Thought Periodical, the national reformer, and the most prominent atheist in late Victorian England, confronted Basant in Socialism, Four and Against, 1887. And he squared off against the prominent socialist Ernest Belfort-Bachs in Will Socialism Benefit the English People, 1887? Bradlaw also published numerous critiques of socialism, such as Some Objections to Socialism, 1884, which was presented as an installment of the atheistic platform. And we should keep in mind that many 19th-century free-thinkers who defended socialism, most notably George Jacob Holioc, were in fact referring to the voluntary socialism advocated by Robert Owen, whose advocacy of co-operation recommended that workers form their own profit-sharing economic communities. This type of voluntary socialism was far removed from the compulsory state socialism of a later time. I shall now give brief accounts of two labels, namely free-thinking, or free-thinker or free-thought, and atheism. In later installments, I will discuss other important terms, such as deism, agnosticism, and rationalism. Free-thinking The terms free-thinker and free-thinking came into common use in early 18th-century England. Although some writers protested that these labels should not be confined to religious skepticism or to critics of Christianity, that is exactly what happened. The decisive text in this development was A Discourse of Free-Thinking, published in 1713 by Anthony Collins, a protege and friend of John Locke. Locke's uneasy alliance with free-thinkers, such as Anthony Collins and John Toland, is something I may discuss in a future essay in this series. Although Collins professed belief in God and has traditionally been classified as a deist, David Berman, in A History of Atheism in Britain, 1988, page 70 footnote, has argued that Collins was actually a closet atheist. This is not an implausible claim on its face, since many deists and other early free-thinkers soft-pedaled their views in an effort to avoid the legal penalties and social stigma that any overt profession of atheism would bring in its wake. Because of these liabilities, it is often necessary to read the works of early free-thinkers, as specially deists, between the lines, so to speak, as Berman did with Collins. Even so, I do not find Berman's case fully persuasive, though I do think it likely that Collins's religious views were more radical than he was willing to admit in print. Free-Thinking, according to Collins, means the use of the understanding in endeavoring to find out the meaning of any proposition whatsoever, in considering the nature of the evidence for and against it, and in judging of it according to the seeming evidence in its favor. A contemporary critic of Collins, the renowned classical scholar Richard Bentley, ridiculed this notion of free-thinking. No one, he said, would dispute it, so Collins was silly to parade free-thinking as a mark of intellectual independence. No one can control our thoughts, after all. Bentley's criticism, which was echoed by other critics of free-thought, missed the point. Free-Thinking, as Collins used the word, conveys moral implications that many theologians of his day found unacceptable. As Collins put it, we have a right to know or may lawfully know any truth, and a right to know any truth whatsoever implies a right to think freely. This assertion of a moral right to think freely, which followed Spinoza's earlier call for free-philosophizing, is highly significant. Collins obviously opposed any legal interference in religious beliefs and practices, but he meant more. He contrasted free-thinking with the moral restraints imposed by religious creeds, tenets that are supposedly sinful to doubt or disbelieve. If we shackle the reason of others through law, or if we shackle our own reason through moral prohibitions, then we must run into the greatest absurdities imaginable, both in principle and in practice. To illustrate his point, Collins drew a parallel between religious faith and eyesight faith. Suppose a group of men decide that some great purpose requires everyone to believe alike in matters of sight, so they compose a list of articles to which everyone must assent. These articles of eyesight faith state that a ball can go through a table, that a knot can be undone with words, that one face may be a hundred or a thousand, and so forth. No one is allowed publicly to contradict these beliefs. Moreover, if a philosopher questions them, he will be told that the propositions of eyesight faith are above, but not contrary to, eyesight. Collins continued, instances will be given of ten thousand mistakes in using our eyes. It will be esteemed dangerous trusting to carnal eyesight, and we said that we ought to rely on the authority of those men who have pensions and salaries on purpose to study those things, and would not deserve what they receive should men use their own eyesight. And as for those few men who should dare to use their own eyes, the least evil they could expect would be to be rendered odious to the multitude under the reproachful ideas of skeptics, latitude inarians, free seers, men tied by no authority. Collins pointed out that our knowledge of astronomy, originally rude and imperfect, improved over time by gradual process in thinking. This is the way of all knowledge, including religious knowledge. But opponents of free thinking proclaim some opinions to be literally damnable. So rather than champion free thinking, they insist that everyone must hold the same opinions in matters of religion if those opinions are deemed necessary for salvation. In contrasting free thinking with beliefs based on authority, Collins struck a keynote that would recur throughout the history of free thought. And this theme, when applied to political doctrines, naturally and inevitably led to radical anti-government ideas in political theory. Atheism. In 1623, the Freier-Mersenne declared that there were 50,000 atheists in Paris alone. Yet just two years later, another Catholic theologian, Fr. Geras, could count only five atheists in all of Europe, two Italians, and three Frenchmen. How can we explain this discrepancy? Either thousands of atheists had suddenly converted within a two-year period, which is highly unlikely, or these Catholic observers had radically different things in mind when they used the term atheist. The word atheist was traditionally used as a smear word, a bugaboo epithet, as the historian preserved Smith once described it. To call someone an atheist was more often an accusation than a description, an invective hurled by Orthodox Christians against any and all dissenters, including other Christians. Some theists have been called atheists for disbelieving in the God or gods of the Orthodox majority. Early Christians, for example, were frequently accused of atheism by their pagan critics. We are called atheists, wrote Justin Martyr in the second century, and we confess that we are atheists so far as the pagan gods are concerned, but not with respect to the most true God. Another Christian apologist, Athena Goris, dismissed as exceedingly silly the charge that Christians are atheists because pagans disagree among themselves, some believe in in gods that others do not. Hence, if Christians qualify as atheists owing to their disbelief in the pagan gods, then everyone is an atheist of some sort. Since those who believe in the God or gods of one religion will necessarily disbelieve in the God or gods of other religions. Atheism was sometimes used to describe a doctrine that, if carried to its logical conclusion, would allegedly result in disbelief. Montaigne, one of the most intelligent and sophisticated Catholics of the 16th century, had this in mind when he condemned the teachings of Martin Luther as implicitly atheistic. Protestants had rejected the Catholic Church as an intermediate authority between God and man, arguing instead that individuals should search their own conscience for divine inspiration and understanding of the Bible. But this was a dangerous innovation, according to Montaigne, because the feeble and unreliable judgments of individuals will generate diverse and conflicting religious beliefs, and eventually terminate in atheism. The novelties of Luther were shaking our old religion, and this new disease would soon degenerate into loathsome atheism. It was rare to find atheism mentioned in the 16th and 17th centuries without being preceded with adjectives like loathsome and wicked. Montaigne was also following the custom of his day in referring to atheism as a disease. Equally common was to label atheists as monsters of one kind or another. Post-Reformation Christians, Catholics and Protestants alike, regaled their readers with the dire accounts of how the disease of atheism was rapidly infecting many thousands of people, and how atheistic monsters were stalking the land, devouring all morality and decency that lay in their path. The Elizabethan writer Roger Aschum blamed the free-thinking Italians for infecting many of his countrymen with atheism. These Italianate Englishmen are incarnate devils, for they first lustfully condemn God, then scornfully mock his word, and also spitefully hate and hurt all the well-wishers thereof. They count as fables the holy mysteries of religion. Another Englishman of that era claimed to have found more atheists in Oxford and Cambridge alone than in all the rest of Europe. In 1645, the Presbyterian Thomas Edwards expressed alarm at a new breed of atheistic monsters who were now common among us, as denying the scriptures, pleading for a toleration of all religions and worships, yea, for blasphemy and denying there is a God. The advocate of religious toleration was sure to find himself condemned as an atheist. For who else would dare call for the legalization of blasphemy, heresy, and other heinous sins? In 1652, Walter Carlton, formerly a physician to the king, complained that England had produced and fostered more swarms of atheistical monsters than any other age or country. A decade later, Bishop Stillingfleet noted an alarming but fashionable trend of atheism among educated Englishmen who considered disbelief in Christianity to be a mark of wit and good judgment. Sir George McKenzie, nicknamed Bloody McKenzie for his zeal in persecuting heretics, was perplexed because the greatest wits are most frequently the greatest atheists. While in 1665, Joseph Glanville similarly noted that it is now accounted a piece of wit and gallantry to be an atheist. Matters had apparently become even worse by 1681 when Archdeacon Parker testified that atheism and irreligion are now as common as vice and debauchery, a warning that was seconded by Archbishop Tillitson, according to whom atheism hath invaded our nation and prevailed to amazement. From the late 17th century to the mid 18th century, dozens upon dozens of books and tracts were published in England that purported to refute atheism. But this atheism scare, as one historian has described it, should be taken with a grain of salt. Many of these attacks were aimed at various Christian heresies, most notably Sassinianism, the precursor to modern Unitarianism, a more radical variant of the ancient heresy known as Arianism. Both Arianism and Sassinianism were types of anti-Trinitarianism. That is, both rejected the Orthodox, Athanasian doctrine of the Trinity and demoted Jesus to a status below God. Some prominent Christian intellectuals, such as John Locke and Isaac Newton, embraced Arianism, though both tried to keep their position under wraps, while some more radical Christian Sassinians went so far as to deny the divine status of Jesus altogether, a position that could easily blend into deism. As Orthodox Christians saw the matter, any version of anti-Trinitarianism undercut Christianity at its roots, so defenders of this heresy were atheists for all practical purposes. According to David Berman, a history of atheism in Britain, page 110, footnote. The first avowedly atheistic book by an English writer was not published until 1782. Titled, Answer to Dr. Priestley's letters to a philosophical unbeliever, most of this pseudonymous work was probably written by Dr. Matthew Turner, a libertarian physician and chemist from Liverpool. Until this time, most English free thinkers embraced some version of deism, or to a lesser extent, pantheism. As we shall see in subsequent essays, the deistic movement more than any other current of free thought was deeply enmeshed in the early history of libertarianism. Thank you for listening to Excursions. To learn more about libertarian philosophy and history, visit www.libertarianism.org.