If we take the three large States of

[231] Western Europe, in which the majority of Christians are Catholics, we see how the ideal of progress, freedom of thought, and the decline of ecclesiastical power go together.  In Spain, where the Church has enormous power and wealth and can still dictate to the Court and the politicians, the idea of progress, which is vital in France and Italy, has not yet made its influence seriously felt.  Liberal thought indeed is widely spread in the small educated class, but the great majority of the whole population are illiterate, and it is the interest of the Church to keep them so.  The education of the people, as all enlightened Spaniards confess, is the pressing need of the country.  How formidable are the obstacles which will have to be overcome before modern education is allowed to spread was shown four years ago by the tragedy of Francisco Ferrer, which reminded everybody that in one corner of Western Europe the mediaeval spirit is still vigorous.  Ferrer had devoted himself to the founding of modern schools in the province of Catalonia (since 1901).  He was a rationalist, and his schools, which had a marked success, were entirely secular.  The ecclesiastical authorities execrated him, and in the summer of 1909 chance gave them the means of destroying him.  A strike of workmen at

[232] Barcelona developed into a violent revolution, Ferrer happened to be in Barcelona for some days at the beginning of the movement, with which he had no connection whatever, and his enemies seized the opportunity to make him responsible for it.  False evidence (including forged documents) was manufactured.  Evidence which would have helped his case was suppressed.  The Catholic papers agitated against him, and the leading ecclesiastics of Barcelona urged the Government not to spare the man who founded the modern schools, the root of all the trouble.  Ferrer was condemned by a military tribunal and shot (Oct. 13).  He suffered in the cause of reason and freedom of thought, though, as there is no longer an Inquisition, his enemies had to kill him under the false charge of anarchy and treason.  It is possible that the indignation which was felt in Europe and was most loudly expressed in France may prevent the repetition of such extreme measures, but almost anything may happen in a country where the Church is so powerful and so bigoted, and the politicians so corrupt.

[1] From Greek monos, alone.

[2] Besides the works referred to in the text, may be mentioned:  Winwood Reade, Martyrdom of Man, 1871; Mill, Three Essays on Religion; W. R. Cassels, Supernatural Religion; Tyndall, Address to British Association at Belfast; Huxley, Animal Automatism; W. K. Clifford, Body and Mind; all in 1874.

[3] It may be noted that Holyoake towards the end of his life helped to found the Rationalist Press Association, of which Mr. Edward Clodd has been for many years Chairman.  This is the chief society in England for propagating rationalism, and its main object is to diffuse in a cheap form the works of freethinkers of mark (cp.  Bibliography).  I understand that more than two million copies of its cheap reprints have been sold.