Now Freethought has a precisely similar significance. It says nothing as to the nature of thought, the origin of thought, or the laws of thought. With none of these questions is it vitally concerned. It simply asserts that there are conditions under which thought is not "free," that is, where it is coerced to a foregone conclusion, and that these conditions are fatal to thought in its higher and more valuable aspects. Freethought is that form of thinking that proceeds along lines of its own determining, rather than along lines that are laid down by authority. In actual practice it is immediately concerned with the expression of opinion rather than with its formation, since no authority can prevent the formation of opinion in any mind that is at all independent in its movements and forms opinions on the basis of observed facts and adequate reasoning. But its chief and primary significance lies in its repudiation of the right of authority to say what form the expression of opinion shall take. And it is also clear that such a term as "Freethought" could only have come into general use and prominence in a society in which the free circulation of opinion was more or less impeded. It thus becomes specially significant that, merely as a matter of history, the first active manifestation of Freethought should have occurred in connection with a revolt against religious teaching and authority. This was no accident, but was rather a case of necessity. For, in the first place, there is no other subject in which pure authority plays so large a part as it does in religion. All churches and all priesthoods, ancient and modern, fall back upon the principle of pure authority as a final method of enforcing their hold upon the people. That, it may be noted in passing, is one of the chief reasons why in all ages governments have found religion one of the most serviceable agencies in maintaining their sway. Secondly, there seems to have been from the very earliest times a radically different frame of mind in the approach to secular and religious matters. So far as one can see there appears to be, even in primitive societies, no very strong opposition to the free discussion of matters that are of a purely secular nature. Questions of ways and means concerning these are freely debated among savage tribes, and in all discussion differences of opinion must be taken for granted. It is when we approach religious subjects that a difference is seen. Here the main concern is to determine the will of the gods, and all reasoning is thus out of place, if not a positive danger. The only thing is to discover "God's will," and when we have his, or his will given in "sacred" books the embargo on free thinking is complete. This feature continues to the end. We do not even to-day discuss religious matters in the same open spirit in which secular matters are debated. There is a bated breath, a timidity of criticism in discussing religious subjects that does not appear when we