These years also saw the appearance of

[221] Mr. John Morley’s sympathetic studies of the French freethinkers of the eighteenth century, Voltaire (1872), Rousseau (1873), and Diderot (1878).  He edited the Fortnightly Review, and for some years this journal was distinguished by brilliant criticisms on the popular religion, contributed by able men writing from many points of view.  A part of the book which he afterwards published under the title Compromise appeared in the Fortnightly in 1874.  In Compromise, “the whole system of objective propositions which make up the popular belief of the day” is condemned as mischievous, and it is urged that those who disbelieve should speak out plainly.  Speaking out is an intellectual duty.  Englishmen have a strong sense of political responsibility, and a correspondingly weak sense of intellectual responsibility.  Even minds that are not commonplace are affected for the worse by the political spirit which “is the great force in throwing love of truth and accurate reasoning into a secondary place.”  And the principles which have prevailed in politics have been adopted by theology for her own use.  In the one case, convenience first, truth second; in the other, emotional comfort first, truth second.  If the immorality is less gross in the case of religion,

[222] there is “the stain of intellectual improbity.”  And this is a crime against society, for “they who tamper with veracity from whatever motive are tampering with the vital force of human progress.”  The intellectual insincerity which is here blamed is just as prevalent to-day.  The English have not changed their nature, the “political” spirit is still rampant, and we are ruled by the view that because compromise is necessary in politics it is also a good thing in the intellectual domain.

The Fortnightly under Mr. Morley’s guidance was an effective organ of enlightenment.  I have no space to touch on the works of other men of letters and of men of science in these combative years, but it is to be noted that, while denunciations of modern thought poured from the pulpits, a popular diffusion of freethought was carried on, especially by Mr. Bradlaugh in public lectures and in his paper, the National Reformer, not without collisions with the civil authorities.

If we take the cases in which the civil authorities in England have intervened to repress the publication of unorthodox opinions during the last two centuries, we find that the object has always been to prevent the spread of freethought among the masses.

[223] The victims have been either poor, uneducated people, or men who propagated freethought in a popular form.  I touched upon this before in speaking of Paine, and it is borne out by the prosecutions of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.  The unconfessed motive has been fear of the people.  Theology has been regarded as a good instrument for keeping the poor in order, and unbelief as a cause or accompaniment