A Short History of Freethought Ancient and Modern, Volume 1 of 2: Third edition, Revised and Expanded, in two volumesRobertson, J. M. (John Mackinnon)
Religion
A Short History of Freethought Ancient and Modern, Volume 1 of 2: Third edition, Revised and Expanded, in two volumes
Robertson, J. M. (John Mackinnon)
Free thought -- History
In Swift's Sentiments of a Church of England Man (1708) the
specialized word is found definitely and abusively connoting
religious unbelief: "The atheists, libertines, despisers
of religion--that is to say, all those who usually pass under
the name of freethinkers"; Steele and Addison so use it in the
Tatler in 1709; [42] and Leslie so uses the term in his Truth of
Christianity Demonstrated (1711). The anonymous essay, Réflexions
sur les grands hommes qui sont morts en plaisantant, by Deslandes
(Amsterdam, 1712), is translated in English (1713) as Reflections
on the Death of Free-thinkers, and the translator uses the term
in his prefatory Letter to the Author, beside putting it in the
text (pp. 50, 85, 97, 102, 106, etc.), where the original had
esprit fort.
It was not till 1713, however, that Anthony Collins's Discourse
of Freethinking, occasioned by the Rise and Growth of a Sect called
Freethinkers, gave the word a universal notoriety, and brought it into
established currency in controversy, with the normal significance of
"deist," Collins having entirely repudiated atheism. Even after this
date, and indeed in full conformity with the definition in Collins's
opening sentence, Ambrose Philips took The Freethinker as the title
of a weekly journal (begun in 1718) on the lines of the Spectator,
with no heterodox leaning, [43] the contributors including Boulter,
afterwards Archbishop of Dublin, and the son of Bishop Burnet. But
despite this attempt to keep the word "freethinking" as a name for
simple freedom from prejudice in secular affairs, the tendency to
specialize it as aforesaid was irresistible. As names go, it was on
the whole a good one; and the bitterness with which it was generally
handled on the orthodox side showed that its implicit claim was felt
to be disturbing, though some antagonists of course claimed from the
first that they were as "free" under the law of right reason as any
skeptic. [44] At this time of day the word may be allowed prescriptive
standing, as having no more drawbacks than most other names for schools
of thought or attitudes of mind, and as having been admitted into most
European languages. The question-begging element is not greater in this
than in many other terms of similar intention, such as "rationalism";
and it incurs no such charge of absurdity as lies against the invidious
religious term, "infidelity." The term "infidel" invites "fidel."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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