Ancient and Modern Celebrated Freethinkers: Reprinted From an English Work, Entitled "Half-Hours With The Freethinkers."Bradlaugh, Charles
Religion
Ancient and Modern Celebrated Freethinkers: Reprinted From an English Work, Entitled "Half-Hours With The Freethinkers."
Bradlaugh, Charles
Rationalists -- Biography
"But the species still continue by propagation, notwithstanding the decay
of the individuals, and the death of our bodies is but matter going
to be dressed in some new form; the impressions may vary, but the wax
continues still the same, and indeed death is in effect the very same
thins with our birth; for as to die is only to cease to be what we
formerly were, so to be born is to begin to be something which we were
not before. Considering the numberless successive generations that have
inhabited this globe, returning at death into the common mass of
the same, mixing with all the other parts thereof, and to this, the
incessant river-like flowing and transpiration of matter every
moment from the bodies of men while they live, as well as their daily
nourishment, inspiration of air, and other additions of matter to their
bulk; it seems probable that there is no particle of matter on the whole
earth which has not been a part of man. Nor is this reasoning confined
to our own species, but remains as true of every order of animals or
plants, or any other beings, since they have been all resolved into one
another by ceaseless revolutions, so that nothing is more certain than
that every material Thing is all Things, and that all Things are but
manifestations of one."
In his reply to Wotton, who attacks those "Letters to Serena," Toland
says they were addressed "to a lady, the most accomplished then in the
world." The name of the lady will probably, remain forever a mystery.
In 1718, he published the celebrated work "Nazarenus, or Jewish,
Gentile, and Mahometan Christianity," which caused an immense sensation
at the time it appeared, and led to his "Mangonentes" (1720,) a work
singularly profound and effective. In the same year he gave the world
"Tetradymus," containing "Hodegus, or the Pillar of Cloud and Fire,"
that guided the Israelites in the Wilderness, _not miraculous_, but a
thing equally practiced by other nations; and "Clidophorus, or of
the Exoteric and Esoteric Philosophy;" and "Hypatia." There is a long
preface to those books, "from under an elm in Bensbury (or Chebem's
camp,) on the 'warren at the south end of Wimbledon Common (1720.")
About this time "Pantheisticon" appeared, written as a caricature
on Church Liturgies, which Archdeacon Hare denounced as "downright
Atheism."
Along with the above, Toland wrote a multitude of small pamphlets; he
translated the fables of Æsop, and published a poem, entitled "Clito,"
which caused much excitement at the time; and, as it represented
Toland's ideal character, we reprinted it in the London Investigator.
His earlier political works were esteemed so valuable in the defence of
the Protestant succession, and advancing the interests of the Elector,
subsequently King of England, that in one of his visits paid to that
Court, he was presented by the Electress with miniature portraits of
herself and family.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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