A Short History of Freethought Ancient and Modern, Volume...

321 Cp. Morell, Spec. Philos. of Europe in the Nineteenth Century, ii, 620; and Life and Corr. of Whately, by E. Jane Whately, abridged ed. p. 159. ↑

322 Articles in the Edinburgh Review (1829–30); and professorial lectures at Edinburgh (1839–56). ↑

323 Cp. Veitch’s Memoir, pp. 195–97. ↑

324 Bampton Lectures on The Limits of Religious Thought, 4th ed. pref. p. xxxvi, note. After thus declaring all metaphysics to be profoundly delusive, Mansel shows at his worst (Philosophy of the Conditioned, 1866, p. 188) by disparaging Mill as an incompetent metaphysician. ↑

325Id. p. xxxviii. ↑

326 Spencer has avowed in his Autobiography (ii, 75) what might be surmized by critical readers, that he wrote the First Part of First Principles in order to guard against the charge of “materialism.” This motive led him to misrepresent “atheism,” and there was a touch of retribution in the general disregard of his disavowal of materialism, at which he expresses surprise. The broad fact remains that for prudential reasons he set forth at the very outset of his system a set of conclusions which could properly be reached only at the end, if at all. ↑

327 As to his fluctuations, which lasted till his death, cp. the author’s New Essays towards a Critical Method, 1897, pp. 144–47, 149–54, 168–69. ↑

328 Baur, Die christliche Lehre der Versöhnung, 1838, pp. 54–63, 124–31. ↑

329 Benrath, Bernardino Ochino, Eng. tr. pp. 248–87. ↑

330 Field’s Memoirs of Parr, 1828, ii, 363, 374–79. ↑

331 See Pearson’s Infidelity, its Aspects, Causes, and Agencies, 1853, p. 215 sq. The position of Maurice and Parr (associated with other and later names) is there treated as one of the prevailing forms of “infidelity,” and called spiritualism. In Germany the orthodox made the same dangerous answer to the theistic criticism. See the Memoirs of F. Perthes, Eng. tr. 2nd. ed. ii, 242–43. ↑

332 Ed. cited, pp. 158–59. ↑

333 Pearson, as cited, pp. 560–62, 568–79, 584–84. ↑

334 Letter in W. L. Courtney’s J. S. Mill, 1889, p. 142. ↑

335 Cp. Schechter, Studies in Judaism, 1896, pp. 59, 71. Schechter writes with a marked Judaic prejudice. ↑

336Id. pp. 117–18. ↑

337 This title imitates that of the famous More Nebuchim of Maimonides. ↑

338 Zunz, cited by Schechter, p. 79. ↑

339 Whence Krochmal is termed the Father of Jewish Science. Id. p. 81. ↑

340A Life of Mr. Yukichi Fukuzawa, by Asatarô Miyamori, revised by Prof. E. H. Vickers, Tokyo, 1902, pp. 9–10. ↑

341 Pamphlet cited, p. 16. ↑

342 A curious example of sporadic freethought occurs in a pamphlet published towards the end of the eighteenth century. In 1771 a writer named Motoōri began a propaganda in favour of Shintôism with the publication of a tract entitled Spirit of Straightening. This tract emphatically asserted the divinity of the Mikado, and elicited a reply from another writer named Ichikawa, who wrote: “The Japanese word kami (God) was simply a title of honour; but in consequence of its having been used to translate the Chinese character shin (shên) a meaning has come to be attached to it which it did not originally possess. The ancestors of the Mikados were not Gods, but men, and were no doubt worthy to be reverenced for their virtues; but their acts were not miraculous nor supernatural. If the ancestors of living men were not human beings, they are more likely to have been birds or beasts than Gods.” Art.: “The Revival of Pure Shinto,” by Sir E. N. Satow, in Trans. Asiatic Society of Japan. ↑

343 Lafcadio Hearn, Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation, 1904, p. 313; cp. p. 46. ↑

344 Thus the third emperor of the Ming dynasty in China (1425–1435), referring to the belief in a future life, makes the avowal: “I am fain to sigh with despair when I see that in our own day men are just as superstitious as ever” (Prof. E. H. Parker, China and Religion, 1905, p. 99). ↑

345 See Hearn, as cited, passim. ↑

346 Cp. Sir F. S. P. Lely, Suggestions for the Better Governing of India, 1906, p. 59. ↑

347 See article on “The Future of Turkey” in the Contemporary Review, April, 1899, by “A Turkish Official.” ↑

348 Yet, as early as the date of the Crimean War, it was noted by an observer that “young Turkey makes profession of atheism.” Ubicini, La Turquie actuelle, 1855, p. 361. Cp. Sir G. Campbell, A Very Recent View of Turkey, 2nd ed. 1878, p. 65. Vambéry makes somewhat light of such tendencies (Der Islam im 19ten Jahrhundert, 1875, pp. 185,187); but admits cases of atheism even among mollahs, as a result of European culture (p. 101). ↑

349 Ubicini (p. 344), with Vambéry and most other observers, pronounces the Turks the most religious people in Europe. ↑

350 H. M. Baird, Modern Greece, New York, 1856, pp. 123–24. ↑

351Id., p. 320. ↑

352Id., p. 339. ↑

353Id., p. 86. ↑

354Id., p. 340. ↑

355 Prof. Neocles Karasis, Greeks and Bulgarians in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, London, 1907, pp. 15–17, citing a Bulgarian journal. ↑