Freethinkers
Knowlton vs. the soul
10/12/2011 10:01
Poor creatures! I wonder they durst go to bed,—for whenever a man sleeps without dreaming, he is as much annihilated as he will ever be.
Yes, my hearers, to my thinking, the idea of a soul, in one way and another, directly and indirectly, has given rise to an incalculable amount of positive misery, and prevented, perhaps, an equal amount of happiness; we can see its influence in nearly all the affairs of life.
I speak not without my own experience, when I say, it is for the happiness of individuals, to be freed of all their jumble of hopes and fears—all their notions about souls, a future state, &c. The calm and natural doctrine of Materialism, which cannot be shaken—which seeks investigation, instead of shrinking from it, will alone render individuals and mankind, peacable, serene, and happy.
Doubtless many who know not what it is to enjoy the views of the Materialist, think them gloomy. They have been so pampered with a mixture of sour sauce and sweetmeats, that they have no stomach for the solid, wholesome fare of Nature—they think annihilation a horrible idea.
Poor creatures! I wonder they durst go to bed,—for whenever a man sleeps without dreaming, he is as much annihilated as he will ever be.
Is there any uneasiness, any longings, any thoughts about the grave, death, hell, &c. In a profound sleep? None at all. Time is nothing. There is more misery in thinking of death for one moment, than there is in being dead ten thousand years, and he is the wisest, who troubles himself the least about it. One religious lunatic has already undergone forty million times more misery than all the dead of the world ever have, or ever will undergo. So says a Materialist.
Letter to the Boston Investigator, Friday April 12, 1833.
I speak not without my own experience, when I say, it is for the happiness of individuals, to be freed of all their jumble of hopes and fears—all their notions about souls, a future state, &c. The calm and natural doctrine of Materialism, which cannot be shaken—which seeks investigation, instead of shrinking from it, will alone render individuals and mankind, peacable, serene, and happy.
Doubtless many who know not what it is to enjoy the views of the Materialist, think them gloomy. They have been so pampered with a mixture of sour sauce and sweetmeats, that they have no stomach for the solid, wholesome fare of Nature—they think annihilation a horrible idea.
Poor creatures! I wonder they durst go to bed,—for whenever a man sleeps without dreaming, he is as much annihilated as he will ever be.
Is there any uneasiness, any longings, any thoughts about the grave, death, hell, &c. In a profound sleep? None at all. Time is nothing. There is more misery in thinking of death for one moment, than there is in being dead ten thousand years, and he is the wisest, who troubles himself the least about it. One religious lunatic has already undergone forty million times more misery than all the dead of the world ever have, or ever will undergo. So says a Materialist.
Letter to the Boston Investigator, Friday April 12, 1833.
Religion, power, hypocrisy
10/06/2011 10:00
To say that one shall believe on authority, without questioning the title of that authority, is to say that one shall not reason, shall not think. One cannot well help thinking sometimes.
Elizur Wright (1804-1885) is remembered not as a freethinker, but as the “father of life insurance.” Wright was an actuarial mathematician who was a Professor of Mathematics at Western Reserve College in Ohio in 1829, when he became interested in the science behind insurance. Wright was also an abolitionist, and a co-founder of the American Anti-Slavery Society in 1833. This is what he had to say about religion and politics in 1877, at the New York Freethinker’s Association’s annual convention at Watkins Glen, NY:
CREED RELIGIONS AS CULTIVATORS OF POLITICAL HYPOCRISY
By political hypocrisy I mean professing to be a Republican or a Democrat without regarding the rights of other people as equal to one’s own—not doing as one would be done by. Now by creed religions I mean associations of people who undertake, by pains and penalties, to compel belief in regard to supernatural persons and a state of existence after death. With creed in itself I have no quarrel. A man who believes nothing is good for nothing. Faith is not a matter of will, still less a thing to be enforced by fear; it naturally follows after evidence, and often takes, and must take, its evidence at second hand; that is, believe on authority…The difference between politics and religion as to creed is, that the former regards only natural men in this world, where evidence is attainable at first hand. The latter regards beings or things above and beyond the senses, of which the evidence, at least for common mortals, is at second hand or resting on authority, and which is often beyond comprehension. To say that one shall believe on authority, without questioning the title of that authority, is to say that one shall not reason, shall not think. One cannot well help thinking sometimes.
D. M. Bennett, The Proceedings and Addresses at the Freethinkers’ Convention Held at Watkins, N.Y., 1878. p. 377
CREED RELIGIONS AS CULTIVATORS OF POLITICAL HYPOCRISY
By political hypocrisy I mean professing to be a Republican or a Democrat without regarding the rights of other people as equal to one’s own—not doing as one would be done by. Now by creed religions I mean associations of people who undertake, by pains and penalties, to compel belief in regard to supernatural persons and a state of existence after death. With creed in itself I have no quarrel. A man who believes nothing is good for nothing. Faith is not a matter of will, still less a thing to be enforced by fear; it naturally follows after evidence, and often takes, and must take, its evidence at second hand; that is, believe on authority…The difference between politics and religion as to creed is, that the former regards only natural men in this world, where evidence is attainable at first hand. The latter regards beings or things above and beyond the senses, of which the evidence, at least for common mortals, is at second hand or resting on authority, and which is often beyond comprehension. To say that one shall believe on authority, without questioning the title of that authority, is to say that one shall not reason, shall not think. One cannot well help thinking sometimes.
D. M. Bennett, The Proceedings and Addresses at the Freethinkers’ Convention Held at Watkins, N.Y., 1878. p. 377
Knowlton on morality
10/05/2011 09:59
A knowledge of man, as an animal, ought to lie as a foundation on which all systems of morality, and all laws relating to the moral conduct of individuals, be founded.
In 1833, Dr. Charles Knowlton was imprisoned in the East Cambridge jail, at hard labor, for a season, as punishment for publishing The Fruits of Philosophy, America’s first birth control manual. On March 31st, the day he was released, Knowlton gave two public lectures, and his friend Abner Kneeland (editor of the Boston Investigator) published them as a booklet.
Knowlton spends no time discussing his incarceration, but instead launches into a description of the process of thought as a completely material interaction between sensation, perception, and the operation of the brain. Knowlton says that thought and consciousness are the result of habitual organic processes he calls “sensorial tendencies.” These ideas (especially as they appear in his book Elements of Modern Materialism) have been compared to the psychological theories of behaviorism — it’s also interesting how the idea of habits appears in David Hume’s philosophy, which Knowlton doesn’t refer to (he mentions Locke), although he’s clearly very familiar with Scottish medical literature.
Those who profess to believe that there is something in a man’s head for the word will to signify, would probably treat, in connection with volition, of a little theological thing called free agency….This is the argument. The inference is, that man, philosophically speaking, is no more a free agent than a time-piece. No attempt, to my knowledge, has ever been made to refute this argument. The course pursued by those who wish not to have the doctrine of necessity prevail, is to blow at it, and attempt to make people believe that, according to this view, it is absurd to punish a man for crime. Whether they believe what they say, I know not; but if they do, they are indeed stupid. Punishment is not, and ought not to be vindictive; it is designed to operate as a cause to prevent further crime; and this it is calculated to do, though man, philosophically speaking, is no more a free agent than a time-piece. Though man and a time-piece agree in one respect, that of not being free agents, still they differ very essentially in others. One is a piece of mechanical machinery, the other an organic machine.
…Yet the Scottish professors, as Reid and Stewart, have so blundered, as to take the simple fact that we think, as good and sufficient evidence, nay, positive proof, that man has a soul or mind, which is ‘not liable to be impaired by disease or mutilation of any of our organs.’ But since I know a man’s ability to think is impaired by disease of the brain…I am much inclined to think that if his brain should be crushed, he could not think quite so well for it.
My hearers, is it not strange that a class of men should have so long presumed to tell us how we are made, what sort of things we are, and what will become of us when we are dead, when they have never made man their study. A knowledge of man, as an animal, ought to lie as a foundation on which all systems of morality, and all laws relating to the moral conduct of individuals, be founded.
Knowlton spends no time discussing his incarceration, but instead launches into a description of the process of thought as a completely material interaction between sensation, perception, and the operation of the brain. Knowlton says that thought and consciousness are the result of habitual organic processes he calls “sensorial tendencies.” These ideas (especially as they appear in his book Elements of Modern Materialism) have been compared to the psychological theories of behaviorism — it’s also interesting how the idea of habits appears in David Hume’s philosophy, which Knowlton doesn’t refer to (he mentions Locke), although he’s clearly very familiar with Scottish medical literature.
Those who profess to believe that there is something in a man’s head for the word will to signify, would probably treat, in connection with volition, of a little theological thing called free agency….This is the argument. The inference is, that man, philosophically speaking, is no more a free agent than a time-piece. No attempt, to my knowledge, has ever been made to refute this argument. The course pursued by those who wish not to have the doctrine of necessity prevail, is to blow at it, and attempt to make people believe that, according to this view, it is absurd to punish a man for crime. Whether they believe what they say, I know not; but if they do, they are indeed stupid. Punishment is not, and ought not to be vindictive; it is designed to operate as a cause to prevent further crime; and this it is calculated to do, though man, philosophically speaking, is no more a free agent than a time-piece. Though man and a time-piece agree in one respect, that of not being free agents, still they differ very essentially in others. One is a piece of mechanical machinery, the other an organic machine.
…Yet the Scottish professors, as Reid and Stewart, have so blundered, as to take the simple fact that we think, as good and sufficient evidence, nay, positive proof, that man has a soul or mind, which is ‘not liable to be impaired by disease or mutilation of any of our organs.’ But since I know a man’s ability to think is impaired by disease of the brain…I am much inclined to think that if his brain should be crushed, he could not think quite so well for it.
My hearers, is it not strange that a class of men should have so long presumed to tell us how we are made, what sort of things we are, and what will become of us when we are dead, when they have never made man their study. A knowledge of man, as an animal, ought to lie as a foundation on which all systems of morality, and all laws relating to the moral conduct of individuals, be founded.
Freethought and Class Consciousness
10/03/2011 09:59
Here then is the root of the evil: those who controlled their destinies were more informed than they. Superior information gave them superior power…
THE WORKING CLASS
If the working class had always been as enlightened as any other class of the community, is it not certain that the institutions of society, framed and established under the influence of such enlightenment, would have been calculated to promote their interests at least, equally with the interests of any other class of the community?
They alone were the producers of wealth; they were always superior in numbers; what then could it be but want of intelligence that disabled them from demanding the formation and establishment of institutions which would make them who were the only producers, the proprietors and enjoyers of at least as great a share of the proceeds of their own industry, as any others?
Here then is the root of the evil: those who controlled their destinies were more informed than they. Superior information gave them superior power; and having a direct interest in accumulating the products of other people’s labor, (themselves being exempt therefrom) and thus of subjecting the working classes to endless toil, they were induced and enabled by such degrees as each succeeding state of society would admit, to frame and establish institutions, the almost invariable result of which is to render poverty-stricken and degraded the condition of the producer, while they enrich and aggrandize the indolent consumer. Here then we discover the main cause of the degradation that ever has, and ever will assail the workingmen, so long as they continue the lamentable subjects of it, and one which nothing can remove but the general diffusion of knowledge through the working class, and an unreserved dissemination of truth, particularly in relation to equal rights and moral and political economy.
Horace Seaver (1810-1889), Occasional Thoughts of Horace Seaver. From Fifty Years of Free Thinking. Selected from the Boston Investigator, 1888.
If the working class had always been as enlightened as any other class of the community, is it not certain that the institutions of society, framed and established under the influence of such enlightenment, would have been calculated to promote their interests at least, equally with the interests of any other class of the community?
They alone were the producers of wealth; they were always superior in numbers; what then could it be but want of intelligence that disabled them from demanding the formation and establishment of institutions which would make them who were the only producers, the proprietors and enjoyers of at least as great a share of the proceeds of their own industry, as any others?
Here then is the root of the evil: those who controlled their destinies were more informed than they. Superior information gave them superior power; and having a direct interest in accumulating the products of other people’s labor, (themselves being exempt therefrom) and thus of subjecting the working classes to endless toil, they were induced and enabled by such degrees as each succeeding state of society would admit, to frame and establish institutions, the almost invariable result of which is to render poverty-stricken and degraded the condition of the producer, while they enrich and aggrandize the indolent consumer. Here then we discover the main cause of the degradation that ever has, and ever will assail the workingmen, so long as they continue the lamentable subjects of it, and one which nothing can remove but the general diffusion of knowledge through the working class, and an unreserved dissemination of truth, particularly in relation to equal rights and moral and political economy.
Horace Seaver (1810-1889), Occasional Thoughts of Horace Seaver. From Fifty Years of Free Thinking. Selected from the Boston Investigator, 1888.
Bradlaugh in Putnam's 400 Years
10/01/2011 09:57
I pray the opposing forces to continue their attacks, that by teaching me my weaknesses they may make me strong.
Here’s a nice Charles Bradlaugh passage, quoted in Four Hundred Years of Freethought, by Samuel P. Putnam, 1894. Putnam seems to be a very interesting character in his own right, and Bradlaugh was a giant. Stay tuned for more material from each of them…
I am an Infidel, a rough, self-taught Infidel. What honors shall I win if I grow grey in this career? Critics who would break a lance against me in my absence will tell you now that I am from the lower classes, without university education, and that I lack classical lore. Clergymen, who see God’s mercy reflected in an eternal hell, will tell you even that I am wanting in a conception of common humanity. Skilled penmen will demonstrate that I have not the merest rudiments of biblical knowledge. I thank these assailants for the past; when they pricked and stung me with their waspish piety, they did me good service, gave me the clue to my weaknesses, laid bare to me my ignorance, and drove me to acquire knowledge which might otherwise never have been mine. I pray the opposing forces to continue their attacks, that by teaching me my weaknesses they may make me strong….I have preached ‘equality,’ not by aiming to reduce men’s intellects to the level of my own, but rather by inciting each of my hearers to develop his mind to the fullest extent, obtaining thus the hope, not of an equality of ignorance, but of a more equal diffusion of knowledge.
Here’s a nice Charles Bradlaugh passage, quoted in Four Hundred Years of Freethought, by Samuel P. Putnam, 1894. Putnam seems to be a very interesting character in his own right, and Bradlaugh was a giant. Stay tuned for more material from each of them…
Robert Dale Owen on marriage
09/30/2011 09:57
We desire a tranquil life, in so far as it can be obtained without a sacrifice of principle.
And, since it’s on the same page of the Boston Investigator as Eliza Sharples’ speech, here’s the famous Robert Dale Owen - Mary Jane Robinson marriage contract. I’m copying the entire document — others cherry-pick the items that interest them, like the women’s rights issue, and leave out the remarks about religion. They don’t want to consider, apparently, how the issues all fit together for people like Owen and Robinson…
New York, Thursday Morning, April 12, 1832.
This afternoon I enter into a martimonial engagement with Mary Jane Robinson, a young person whose opinions on all important subjects, and whose mode of thinking and feeling, coincide, in so far as I may judge, more intimately with my own, than those of any other individual with whom I am acquainted.
We contract a legal marriage, not because we deem the ceremony necessary to us, or useful, in a rational state of public opinion, to society; but because, if we became companions without a legal ceremony, we should either be compelled to a series of dissimulations which we both dislike, or be perpetually exposed to annoyances, originating in a public opinion, which is powerful though unenlightened; and whose power, though we do not fear nor respect it, we do not perceive the utility of unnecessarily braving. We desire a tranquil life, in so far as it can be obtained without a sacrifice of principle.
We have selected the simplest ceremony which the laws of this state recognize, and which, in consequence of the liberality of these laws, involves not the necessity of calling in the aid of a member of the clerical profession; a profession the credentials of which we do not recognize, and the influence of which we are led to consider injurious to society. The ceremony too, involves not the necessity of making promises regarding that over which we have no control, the state of human affections in the distant future; nor of repeating forms which we deem offensive, inasmuch as they outrage the principles of human liberty and equality, by conferring rights and imposing duties unequally on the sexes.
The ceremony consists simply in the signature, by each of us, on a written contract, in which we agree to take each other as husband and wife, according to the laws of the state of New York; our signatures being attested by those of all our friends who may be present.
Of the unjust rights which, in virtue of this ceremony, an iniquitous law gives me over the person and property of another, I cannot legally, but I can morally divest myself. And I hereby distinctly and emphatically declare, that I consider myself, and earnestly desire to be considered by others as utterly divested, now and during the rest of my life, of any such rights; the barbarous relics of a feudal and despotic system, soon destined, in the onward course of improvement, to be wholly swept away; and the existence of which is a tacit insult to the good sense and good feeling of the present comparatively civilized age.
I put down these sentiments on paper this morning, as a simple record of the views and feelings with which I enter into an engagement, important in whatever light we consider it; views and feelings which I believe to be shared by her who is, this afternoon, to become my wife.
Robert Dale Owen
I concur with these sentiments.
Mary Jane Robinson
And, since it’s on the same page of the Boston Investigator as Eliza Sharples’ speech, here’s the famous Robert Dale Owen - Mary Jane Robinson marriage contract. I’m copying the entire document — others cherry-pick the items that interest them, like the women’s rights issue, and leave out the remarks about religion. They don’t want to consider, apparently, how the issues all fit together for people like Owen and Robinson…
This afternoon I enter into a martimonial engagement with Mary Jane Robinson, a young person whose opinions on all important subjects, and whose mode of thinking and feeling, coincide, in so far as I may judge, more intimately with my own, than those of any other individual with whom I am acquainted.
We contract a legal marriage, not because we deem the ceremony necessary to us, or useful, in a rational state of public opinion, to society; but because, if we became companions without a legal ceremony, we should either be compelled to a series of dissimulations which we both dislike, or be perpetually exposed to annoyances, originating in a public opinion, which is powerful though unenlightened; and whose power, though we do not fear nor respect it, we do not perceive the utility of unnecessarily braving. We desire a tranquil life, in so far as it can be obtained without a sacrifice of principle.
We have selected the simplest ceremony which the laws of this state recognize, and which, in consequence of the liberality of these laws, involves not the necessity of calling in the aid of a member of the clerical profession; a profession the credentials of which we do not recognize, and the influence of which we are led to consider injurious to society. The ceremony too, involves not the necessity of making promises regarding that over which we have no control, the state of human affections in the distant future; nor of repeating forms which we deem offensive, inasmuch as they outrage the principles of human liberty and equality, by conferring rights and imposing duties unequally on the sexes.
The ceremony consists simply in the signature, by each of us, on a written contract, in which we agree to take each other as husband and wife, according to the laws of the state of New York; our signatures being attested by those of all our friends who may be present.
Of the unjust rights which, in virtue of this ceremony, an iniquitous law gives me over the person and property of another, I cannot legally, but I can morally divest myself. And I hereby distinctly and emphatically declare, that I consider myself, and earnestly desire to be considered by others as utterly divested, now and during the rest of my life, of any such rights; the barbarous relics of a feudal and despotic system, soon destined, in the onward course of improvement, to be wholly swept away; and the existence of which is a tacit insult to the good sense and good feeling of the present comparatively civilized age.
I put down these sentiments on paper this morning, as a simple record of the views and feelings with which I enter into an engagement, important in whatever light we consider it; views and feelings which I believe to be shared by her who is, this afternoon, to become my wife.
Robert Dale Owen
I concur with these sentiments.
Mary Jane Robinson
Dr. Charles Knowlton on infidelity
09/29/2011 09:56
I for one, can say I was once “a believer,” and I have not lost the knowledge—if knowledge it may be called—which made me such, but I have acquired MORE, and this has made me an infidel.
This is an 1833 editorial by Dr. Charles Knowlton, a frequent contributor to the Boston Investigator. There are several letters from Knowlton like this one, that are usually not connected with him (although no one has really tried to collect his writings…yet). All the spelling and emphasis is from the Spring 1833 original. I don’t have the date, but I’ll swing back around to the Antiquarian Society and pick it up sometime. This is nearly 200 years old, but a lot of the material about the state of religion and infidelity in America could have been written last week:
“INFIDELITY IN THE UNITED STATES.”
Such is the caption of an article in the Boston Mercantile of the 8th inst. Which article is such a heterogenus compound of error, truth, and scandal, that it must be attended to; else—as warm weather is approaching—it may shock the SENSE of—some good people! And cause them to turn aside from the broad, free road to truth and MENTAL INDEPENDENCE, in which so many are now beginning to walk.
The writer commences by expressing his opinion, that a free government cannot long exist unless the people are under the influence of the “moral principles of the christian religion.” MORAL principles, ha? What does the fellow mean? Hasn’t he the pluck to say religious principles, in these days of dawning reason and free enquiry? Surely he means religious principles, else why fall into libeling the infidels as if at a days work—as if he expected to make money by it?
Doesn’t he know there is nothing in the bible but paper and black marks? Moral principles are in the man. They are what experience in the world, or what eventually amounts to the same thing—they are what REASON has taught him. And hence it is, that when he meets with an EXPRESSION of them in the bible or any other book, he approves of it. No man admits it is right, for instance, to “do unto others as we would have others do unto us,” because he finds these words, or this precept, in the bible; but because reason has already taught him this moral truth. He as readily assents to this position—this expression of what reason has taught him, when he meets it in the writings of its original author, Confucius, as when he reads it in the new Testament.
Religious principles are what reason does not teach, and hence men differ about them. A religious man may or may not be moral; and a man may be moral, but not religious. When the words MORALITY and RELIGION are properly defined, it will be seen that there is a very marked distinction between them. There are no MORAL principles in the christian religion, any more than there are white hairs in black hairs. But as both white and black hairs may exist on the same head, so may expressions of moral principles and of religious notions, be bound up in the same book.
Now as moral principles are the result of experience—as they are what the great Book of Nature teaches, and as infidels read this book—if not more freely certainly less hampered by prejudice, than others; it is but reasonable to suppose, that, of the two, their moral principles are the best.
At any rate, their avowal of unpopular opinions, as a general thing argues in favour of their honesty. Morality is their only stay—their only claim on public favour. They have no cloak to cover their iniquities—no influential priests to hush up disgraceful affairs. And it is not their privilege to beg the widows’ mite; to demand tithes; to anathematize the philosopher and deprive him of his oath; to stop the mail, (if possible) to shut up shops, and arrest all labor, one day in seven, for the good of souls!
Verily, Verily, I would advise the man of the Mercantile to eat a little mustard! That he may talk no more about the “moral principles of the christian religion” being essential to a FREE government. Does not all history show that where “superstition in fashion” has had the greatest sway, government has been the most oppressive and tyrannical?
“We cannot persuade ourselves,” says the man of the Mercantile, “that the public generally are aware of the immense number (good!) of those who now fight under the black banners of Tom Pain and Robert Owen.” Black banners! Alas, the charges to which our language is subject. I have ever thought that black is emblematical of darkness—ignorance; but here it is coupled with the idea of light—knowledge. What but knowledge sends the dark veil of superstition, which is so industriously drawn over the understandings of almost all persons while young. I for one, can say I was once “a believer,” and I have not lost the knowledge—if knowledge it may be called—which made me such, but I have acquired MORE, and this has made me an infidel.
Speaking of the progress if infidelity, in the United States, the Mercantile says, on the authority of the “Spirit of the Pilgrims,” that “in 1828, the Owen infidels commenced publishing in New York the Free Enquirer, and in 1832 they had enlisted in their cause TWENTY PERIODICALS!” This is cheering. Our march is onward. We have began at the bottom—we are based on truth which dreads not but courts investigation. We have no expensive ceremonies. We free the mind of all its superstitious fears. The happiness of mankind is our object.
“And,” continues the man of Mercantile, “the citizens of Boston are probably aware that Julien Hall has been the scene of their blasphemous and disgusting services.” From what he has said of the MORAL principles of the christian RELIGION! I am not surprised to find that he is not sensible, that blasphemy consists only in speaking disrespectfully of a god in whom you believe. It is not blasphemy for christians to call Mahomet an imposter; nor for infidels to call Moses’ god a tyrant. As to the expression “HAS BEEN the scene” &c. it was doubtless designed to misrepresent. The public may rest assured that free enquiry is steadily on the advance in Boston. Julien Hall continues to be crowded by those who are in search of truth as it is in nature; and their organ, the Investigator, is spreading far and wide.
Having spoken of the progress of infidelity, the Mercantile proceeds to lay before his readers what he calls the leading principles of this “new school of irreligionists.” I shall but briefly notice some of his most glaring misrepresentations. First, That we hold “such a thing as moral truth cannot exist.” This is a lie, unless some very novel meaning is attached to the term, MORAL TRUTH.
Second, “that there is no proof that the soul is immaterial, or that it will survive the body.” We say there is no soul, and challenge all the world to adduce any evidence of the existence of such a thing.
Third, “They deny wholly the doctrine of free moral agency, and the consequent doctrine of responsibility, so that there is no such thing as virtue,—no such thing as crime.” We say there are no effects without causes, either without the head or within, and that one effect as necessarily follows its cause as another. Consequently, man, philosophically speaking, is no more a free agent than a time piece, yet we say, and consistently too, that, morally speaking man is responsible to man for his actions. As to the words virtue and crime, we give them an obvious and certain meaning. We say virtue consists in virtuous conduct or actions, and that virtuous actions are such as are conducive to our own happiness or that of others. Vice or crime we give the opposite meaning. We do NOT say that, “in our actions we ought to be governed by no motive but the desire of doing what will be most useful of agreeable to ourselves individually.” This is but another willful lie.
We do not say “that commerce ought to be DESTROYED; and only a VERY FEW of us hold “that property ought to be equally divided.”
As to “promiscuous intercourse,” so much harped upon by our opponents, as they have said ten times more about it than we have, I, of a truth, begin to believe it accords with their feelings, and that on this account their aim is to make people believe that many enlightened and distinguished characters approve of it. And as to the Slander cast upon the once Miss Frances Wright, while it can do us no harm, it is that which has mostly led me to “answer a fool according to his folly,” in the style of this communication.
C.K.
This is an 1833 editorial by Dr. Charles Knowlton, a frequent contributor to the Boston Investigator. There are several letters from Knowlton like this one, that are usually not connected with him (although no one has really tried to collect his writings…yet). All the spelling and emphasis is from the Spring 1833 original. I don’t have the date, but I’ll swing back around to the Antiquarian Society and pick it up sometime. This is nearly 200 years old, but a lot of the material about the state of religion and infidelity in America could have been written last week:
Such is the caption of an article in the Boston Mercantile of the 8th inst. Which article is such a heterogenus compound of error, truth, and scandal, that it must be attended to; else—as warm weather is approaching—it may shock the SENSE of—some good people! And cause them to turn aside from the broad, free road to truth and MENTAL INDEPENDENCE, in which so many are now beginning to walk.
The writer commences by expressing his opinion, that a free government cannot long exist unless the people are under the influence of the “moral principles of the christian religion.” MORAL principles, ha? What does the fellow mean? Hasn’t he the pluck to say religious principles, in these days of dawning reason and free enquiry? Surely he means religious principles, else why fall into libeling the infidels as if at a days work—as if he expected to make money by it?
Doesn’t he know there is nothing in the bible but paper and black marks? Moral principles are in the man. They are what experience in the world, or what eventually amounts to the same thing—they are what REASON has taught him. And hence it is, that when he meets with an EXPRESSION of them in the bible or any other book, he approves of it. No man admits it is right, for instance, to “do unto others as we would have others do unto us,” because he finds these words, or this precept, in the bible; but because reason has already taught him this moral truth. He as readily assents to this position—this expression of what reason has taught him, when he meets it in the writings of its original author, Confucius, as when he reads it in the new Testament.
Religious principles are what reason does not teach, and hence men differ about them. A religious man may or may not be moral; and a man may be moral, but not religious. When the words MORALITY and RELIGION are properly defined, it will be seen that there is a very marked distinction between them. There are no MORAL principles in the christian religion, any more than there are white hairs in black hairs. But as both white and black hairs may exist on the same head, so may expressions of moral principles and of religious notions, be bound up in the same book.
Now as moral principles are the result of experience—as they are what the great Book of Nature teaches, and as infidels read this book—if not more freely certainly less hampered by prejudice, than others; it is but reasonable to suppose, that, of the two, their moral principles are the best.
At any rate, their avowal of unpopular opinions, as a general thing argues in favour of their honesty. Morality is their only stay—their only claim on public favour. They have no cloak to cover their iniquities—no influential priests to hush up disgraceful affairs. And it is not their privilege to beg the widows’ mite; to demand tithes; to anathematize the philosopher and deprive him of his oath; to stop the mail, (if possible) to shut up shops, and arrest all labor, one day in seven, for the good of souls!
Verily, Verily, I would advise the man of the Mercantile to eat a little mustard! That he may talk no more about the “moral principles of the christian religion” being essential to a FREE government. Does not all history show that where “superstition in fashion” has had the greatest sway, government has been the most oppressive and tyrannical?
“We cannot persuade ourselves,” says the man of the Mercantile, “that the public generally are aware of the immense number (good!) of those who now fight under the black banners of Tom Pain and Robert Owen.” Black banners! Alas, the charges to which our language is subject. I have ever thought that black is emblematical of darkness—ignorance; but here it is coupled with the idea of light—knowledge. What but knowledge sends the dark veil of superstition, which is so industriously drawn over the understandings of almost all persons while young. I for one, can say I was once “a believer,” and I have not lost the knowledge—if knowledge it may be called—which made me such, but I have acquired MORE, and this has made me an infidel.
Speaking of the progress if infidelity, in the United States, the Mercantile says, on the authority of the “Spirit of the Pilgrims,” that “in 1828, the Owen infidels commenced publishing in New York the Free Enquirer, and in 1832 they had enlisted in their cause TWENTY PERIODICALS!” This is cheering. Our march is onward. We have began at the bottom—we are based on truth which dreads not but courts investigation. We have no expensive ceremonies. We free the mind of all its superstitious fears. The happiness of mankind is our object.
“And,” continues the man of Mercantile, “the citizens of Boston are probably aware that Julien Hall has been the scene of their blasphemous and disgusting services.” From what he has said of the MORAL principles of the christian RELIGION! I am not surprised to find that he is not sensible, that blasphemy consists only in speaking disrespectfully of a god in whom you believe. It is not blasphemy for christians to call Mahomet an imposter; nor for infidels to call Moses’ god a tyrant. As to the expression “HAS BEEN the scene” &c. it was doubtless designed to misrepresent. The public may rest assured that free enquiry is steadily on the advance in Boston. Julien Hall continues to be crowded by those who are in search of truth as it is in nature; and their organ, the Investigator, is spreading far and wide.
Having spoken of the progress of infidelity, the Mercantile proceeds to lay before his readers what he calls the leading principles of this “new school of irreligionists.” I shall but briefly notice some of his most glaring misrepresentations. First, That we hold “such a thing as moral truth cannot exist.” This is a lie, unless some very novel meaning is attached to the term, MORAL TRUTH.
Second, “that there is no proof that the soul is immaterial, or that it will survive the body.” We say there is no soul, and challenge all the world to adduce any evidence of the existence of such a thing.
Third, “They deny wholly the doctrine of free moral agency, and the consequent doctrine of responsibility, so that there is no such thing as virtue,—no such thing as crime.” We say there are no effects without causes, either without the head or within, and that one effect as necessarily follows its cause as another. Consequently, man, philosophically speaking, is no more a free agent than a time piece, yet we say, and consistently too, that, morally speaking man is responsible to man for his actions. As to the words virtue and crime, we give them an obvious and certain meaning. We say virtue consists in virtuous conduct or actions, and that virtuous actions are such as are conducive to our own happiness or that of others. Vice or crime we give the opposite meaning. We do NOT say that, “in our actions we ought to be governed by no motive but the desire of doing what will be most useful of agreeable to ourselves individually.” This is but another willful lie.
We do not say “that commerce ought to be DESTROYED; and only a VERY FEW of us hold “that property ought to be equally divided.”
As to “promiscuous intercourse,” so much harped upon by our opponents, as they have said ten times more about it than we have, I, of a truth, begin to believe it accords with their feelings, and that on this account their aim is to make people believe that many enlightened and distinguished characters approve of it. And as to the Slander cast upon the once Miss Frances Wright, while it can do us no harm, it is that which has mostly led me to “answer a fool according to his folly,” in the style of this communication.
C.K.
The Lady of the Rotunda
09/28/2011 09:55
Superstition, I shall define to be the invention of the human imagination, where demonstration is not to be had, and where a system of alleged causes, falling back into a general first cause, is made of the fanciful idea of a personification of supposed principles.
First Discourse of the Lady of the Rotunda.
The task which I propose to perform, I am told, has no precedent in this country; so I have great need of craving your indulgent attention and most gentle criticism.
A woman stands before you who has been educated and practiced in all the severity of religious discipline, awakened to the principles of reason but as yesterday, seeking on these boards a moral and a sweet revenge, for the outrage that has been committed on the majesty of that reason, and on the dignity of that truth, inasmuch as the barbaric administration of alleged law, that never had the consent of the people; of law, that has been made for the purpose, by the administrators of the law, has arrested the voices and imprisoned the persons of the two brave and talented men, who first made this building the temple of reason and truth, and who first essayed to teach the people of this country the practical importance and incalculable value of free and public oral discussion.
This, sirs, is my purpose; I appear before you to plead the cause of those injured men; to endeavor to reason before you as they reasoned before you; to follow their example, even if the sequel be a following them to a prison.
I have left a home, in a distant country, where comfort and even affluence surrounded me—a happy home, and the bosom of an affectionate and a happy family. I have left such a home, under the excitement which religious persecution has roused, to make this first and singular appearance before you, for a purpose, I trust that is second to none.
So much, by way of an introduction, where no introduction has been otherwise made. I come at once to the preliminaries of my present discourse.
Would you have from me a profession of faith?—You shall have it.
Faith, in its relation to superstition, I have none. But of faith, in the relation of the word to whatever is lovely, whatever is good, and whatever is true, whatever is morally binding and honorable, I flatter myself that I am rich, and of large possessions. At least, sirs, I submit this my faith to your most severe critical judgments.
But then, we are told, that they who have no faith in relation to superstition, are scoffers and scorners.
…This shall not be the seat of the scorner while it is in my hands, but the theatre of reason, of truth, and of free discussion; of an encouragement to every well expressed desire for mutual instruction.
…I purpose to speak, in my continued discourses, if this shall find favor with you, of superstitions and of reason, of tyranny and of liberty, of morals and of politics.
Of politics!—politics from a woman! Some will exclaim, yes, I will set before my sex the example of asserting an equality for them with their present lords and masters, and strive to teach all, yes all, that the undue submission, which constitutes slavery is honorable to none; while the mutual submission, which leads to mutual good, is to all alike dignified and honorable.
Superstition, I shall define to be the invention of the human imagination, where demonstration is not to be had, and where a system of alleged causes, falling back into a general first cause, is made of the fanciful idea of a personification of supposed principles…It would not be in vain, if man were superstitious enough to seek to make a paradise of the earth, instead of making his never-to-be-reached paradise of the conceits of his own brain. Help me sirs, in this mighty undertaking, and some of us may see that we have made the world the better for living in it.
The 15 June, 1832 Boston Investigator's excerpts from Eliza Sharples speech begin with Robert Dale Owen's description in column 2, and cover two columns. In the fifth column, there is a reprint from the Workingman’s Advocate, of an article covering RDO’s marriage to Mary Jane Robinson, including the text of their “protest” vows. Owen introduces Sharples (originally to readers of the New York Free Enquirer) with the following:
The Lady of the Rotunda.
New York, 11th May, 1832.
It needs not to repeat what every one admits, that this is an age prolific of interesting mental and moral phenomena; an age rich in prognostics of change and reform. The French Revolution, with the various novelties to which it has given birth (including the St. Simonian) is among the most marked of these. The growth of free opinion in this country is another; the boldness, sometimes verging on violence, of Richard Carlile and Robert Taylor is another; and the fact I am now about to detail is entitled to a place among the number.
A young unmarried English lady, said to be of a highly respectable and affluent family, and who conceals her name because her relations desire that it may not be published, has appeared in London, has hired “The Rotunda,” the same building where Taylor formerly lectured, delivers original lectures there twice every Sunday, and three times in the course of the week; and has commenced, on her own responsibility, a periodical entitled “The Isis.”
She delivered on the 29th January last her opening address, and repeated the same several times in the course of the ensuing week. Her lectured are thronged; how her periodical succeeds I have not heard.
…I am now about to leave this city for London, and hope, while there, to see this Lady of the Rotunda, if I can procure an introduction to her.—At all events, if her lectures are continued, I shall attend them; and “report progress,” as politicians say, to our readers.
The task which I propose to perform, I am told, has no precedent in this country; so I have great need of craving your indulgent attention and most gentle criticism.
A woman stands before you who has been educated and practiced in all the severity of religious discipline, awakened to the principles of reason but as yesterday, seeking on these boards a moral and a sweet revenge, for the outrage that has been committed on the majesty of that reason, and on the dignity of that truth, inasmuch as the barbaric administration of alleged law, that never had the consent of the people; of law, that has been made for the purpose, by the administrators of the law, has arrested the voices and imprisoned the persons of the two brave and talented men, who first made this building the temple of reason and truth, and who first essayed to teach the people of this country the practical importance and incalculable value of free and public oral discussion.
This, sirs, is my purpose; I appear before you to plead the cause of those injured men; to endeavor to reason before you as they reasoned before you; to follow their example, even if the sequel be a following them to a prison.
I have left a home, in a distant country, where comfort and even affluence surrounded me—a happy home, and the bosom of an affectionate and a happy family. I have left such a home, under the excitement which religious persecution has roused, to make this first and singular appearance before you, for a purpose, I trust that is second to none.
So much, by way of an introduction, where no introduction has been otherwise made. I come at once to the preliminaries of my present discourse.
Would you have from me a profession of faith?—You shall have it.
Faith, in its relation to superstition, I have none. But of faith, in the relation of the word to whatever is lovely, whatever is good, and whatever is true, whatever is morally binding and honorable, I flatter myself that I am rich, and of large possessions. At least, sirs, I submit this my faith to your most severe critical judgments.
But then, we are told, that they who have no faith in relation to superstition, are scoffers and scorners.
…This shall not be the seat of the scorner while it is in my hands, but the theatre of reason, of truth, and of free discussion; of an encouragement to every well expressed desire for mutual instruction.
…I purpose to speak, in my continued discourses, if this shall find favor with you, of superstitions and of reason, of tyranny and of liberty, of morals and of politics.
Of politics!—politics from a woman! Some will exclaim, yes, I will set before my sex the example of asserting an equality for them with their present lords and masters, and strive to teach all, yes all, that the undue submission, which constitutes slavery is honorable to none; while the mutual submission, which leads to mutual good, is to all alike dignified and honorable.
Superstition, I shall define to be the invention of the human imagination, where demonstration is not to be had, and where a system of alleged causes, falling back into a general first cause, is made of the fanciful idea of a personification of supposed principles…It would not be in vain, if man were superstitious enough to seek to make a paradise of the earth, instead of making his never-to-be-reached paradise of the conceits of his own brain. Help me sirs, in this mighty undertaking, and some of us may see that we have made the world the better for living in it.
The Lady of the Rotunda.
New York, 11th May, 1832.
It needs not to repeat what every one admits, that this is an age prolific of interesting mental and moral phenomena; an age rich in prognostics of change and reform. The French Revolution, with the various novelties to which it has given birth (including the St. Simonian) is among the most marked of these. The growth of free opinion in this country is another; the boldness, sometimes verging on violence, of Richard Carlile and Robert Taylor is another; and the fact I am now about to detail is entitled to a place among the number.
A young unmarried English lady, said to be of a highly respectable and affluent family, and who conceals her name because her relations desire that it may not be published, has appeared in London, has hired “The Rotunda,” the same building where Taylor formerly lectured, delivers original lectures there twice every Sunday, and three times in the course of the week; and has commenced, on her own responsibility, a periodical entitled “The Isis.”
She delivered on the 29th January last her opening address, and repeated the same several times in the course of the ensuing week. Her lectured are thronged; how her periodical succeeds I have not heard.
…I am now about to leave this city for London, and hope, while there, to see this Lady of the Rotunda, if I can procure an introduction to her.—At all events, if her lectures are continued, I shall attend them; and “report progress,” as politicians say, to our readers.
Hints to Heretics
09/27/2011 09:51
Dare to be honest...
This is going to be a place where I post (daily, I hope) excerpts from things written by freethinkers throughout history. In no specific order. The first one, because I happened to find this one just now, while looking at the Boston Investigator (I've never really heard of him before) is this from Horace Seaver, editor of the Investigator after Abner Kneeland:
Hints to Heretics
Be courageous. Dare to be honest, just, magnanimous, true to your country, to yourselves, to the world. Dare to do to others as you would have them do to you. Most men are cowards. They are afraid to speak and to act when duty calls, and as duty requires. Few men will suffer themselves to be called cowards; and yet they betray their cowardice by the very course they take to resent the insult. A man may intrepidly face the cannon’s mouth, and be an arrant coward after all.
There is a higher, a nobler courage, than was ever displayed in the heat of battle, or on the field of carnage. There is a moral courage, which enables a man to triumph over foes more formidable than were ever marshalled by any Caesar. A courage which impels him to do his duty, to hold fast his integrity, to maintain a conscience void of offence, at every hazard and sacrifice, in defiance of the world. Such is the courage that sustains every good man, amidst the temptations, allurements, horrors, conflicts, opposition, ridicule, malice, cruelty, or persecution, which beset and threaten him at every stage of his progress through life.
Horace Seaver (1810-1889), Occasional Thoughts of Horace Seaver. From Fifty Years of Free Thinking. Selected from the Boston Investigator, 1888.
So who was Seaver? A New York Times obituary, dated 22 August 1889, reads:
“OBITUARY NOTES. Horace Seaver, editor of the Investigator, died yesterday afternoon in Boston. He was born in Boston in 1810, and his connection with the Investigator dates from 1837, when he contributed to that paper a series of articles that attracted wide attention. In 1838 he became editor of the paper and Josiah P. Mendum proprietor, a partnership which had existed uninterruptedly for fifty-one years. Mr. Seaver devoted a great deal of time to lecturing, his chief theme being "Free Thought." He was a great anti-slavery man, and was a warm friend of Wendell Phillips, Parker Pillsbury, and William Lloyd Garrison.”
This is going to be a place where I post (daily, I hope) excerpts from things written by freethinkers throughout history. In no specific order. The first one, because I happened to find this one just now, while looking at the Boston Investigator (I've never really heard of him before) is this from Horace Seaver, editor of the Investigator after Abner Kneeland:
Hints to Heretics
Be courageous. Dare to be honest, just, magnanimous, true to your country, to yourselves, to the world. Dare to do to others as you would have them do to you. Most men are cowards. They are afraid to speak and to act when duty calls, and as duty requires. Few men will suffer themselves to be called cowards; and yet they betray their cowardice by the very course they take to resent the insult. A man may intrepidly face the cannon’s mouth, and be an arrant coward after all.
There is a higher, a nobler courage, than was ever displayed in the heat of battle, or on the field of carnage. There is a moral courage, which enables a man to triumph over foes more formidable than were ever marshalled by any Caesar. A courage which impels him to do his duty, to hold fast his integrity, to maintain a conscience void of offence, at every hazard and sacrifice, in defiance of the world. Such is the courage that sustains every good man, amidst the temptations, allurements, horrors, conflicts, opposition, ridicule, malice, cruelty, or persecution, which beset and threaten him at every stage of his progress through life.
Horace Seaver (1810-1889), Occasional Thoughts of Horace Seaver. From Fifty Years of Free Thinking. Selected from the Boston Investigator, 1888.
“OBITUARY NOTES. Horace Seaver, editor of the Investigator, died yesterday afternoon in Boston. He was born in Boston in 1810, and his connection with the Investigator dates from 1837, when he contributed to that paper a series of articles that attracted wide attention. In 1838 he became editor of the paper and Josiah P. Mendum proprietor, a partnership which had existed uninterruptedly for fifty-one years. Mr. Seaver devoted a great deal of time to lecturing, his chief theme being "Free Thought." He was a great anti-slavery man, and was a warm friend of Wendell Phillips, Parker Pillsbury, and William Lloyd Garrison.”
