A Grammar of Freethought

cerned with religion, it is little better than a colossal blunder, would not be nearly so complete. Moreover, it is a generalization upon which religionists of all classes love to dwell, or even to

alse, as "All men are religious." For some men are not liars, and some men are not religious. All the generalization means is that some

less primitive times their number diminishes, and their sphere of influence becomes more and more sharply defined. The gods are still credited with the ability to do certain things, but there are other things which do somehow get done without them. How that discovery and that division are made need not detain us for the moment, but the fact is patent. Advancing civilization sees the process continued and quickened, nay, that is civilization; for until nature is r

ke the biblical deity he may look at his creation and declare it good, but he also resembles this deity in presently feeling the impulse to destroy what he has made. To the products of his mind man can no more give immortality than he can to the work of his hands. In many cas

adth of thought which robbed the phenomenon of its local character and gave it a universal application. Thus, in one of his wonderfully modern dialogues Lucian depicts the Olympian deities discussing, much in the spirit of a modern Church Congress, the prevalence of unbelief among men. The gods are disturbed a

heir faith in us. We ought rather to be pleased that there is a man left to say his prayers. We are among ourselves with no strangers present. Tell us, then, Zeus, have you ever really taken pains to distinguish between good men and bad? Theseus, not you, destroyed the robbers in Attica. As far as Providence was concerned, Sciron and Pity-O-Campus might have murdered and plundered to the end of time. If Eurystheus had not looked

ourse, the argument does not touch the question of the mere existence of a god, but it does set forth the revolt of awakened common sense against the worship of a "mor

t the side of which the conquest of the fever-stricken tropics or the frozen north is mere child's play. It is quite needless to enter into an elaborate speculation as to the exact steps by which this process of deanthropomorphization-to use a word of the late John Fiske's-was accomplished, but one can picture the main line by what we see taking place at later stages of development. And there is no exception to the rule that so soon as any group of phenomena

pment of the moral sense from its first beginnings in the animal world to its highest developments in man. What is called the "mystery of morality" simply has no existence to anyone who is not a mystery-monger by profession or inclination. And here, too, the gods have been receiving their deserts. For it is now clear that instead of being a help to morals there has been no greater obstacle to a healthy morality t

the discharge of purely secular functions, but mainly as to which religion the State shall uphold. To-day, the central issue is whether the State shall teach any religion, whether that does not lie right outside its legitimate functions. And this marks an enormous advance. It is a plain recognition of the truth that the gods have nothing to contribute of any value to the development of our social life. It marks the beginning of the end, and registers the truth that man must be his own saviour

hurch of Rome in order to embrace those of the Church of England represents a fairly common type. It is the prevalence of a particular type of mind in society that constitutes a danger, and it is against this that our aim is ultimately directed. Great as is the amount of organized superstition that exists, the amount of unorganized superstition is still greater, and probably more dangerous. One of the revelations of the late war was the evidence it presented of the tremendous amount of raw credulity, of t

kness that may find expression in strange and unexpected but always more or less dangerous ways. It is against the prevalence of this type of mind that the Freethinker is really fighting. Freethinkers realize-apparently they are the only ones that do realize-that the creation of a better type of society is finally dependent upon the existence of a sanely educated intelligence, and that will never exist while there are large bodies of people who can persuade themselves that human welfare is in some way dependent upon, or furthered by, practices and beli

he defences of the faith crumble like wooden forts before modern artillery. It is no longer a question of debating whether religious beliefs are true. So long as we give a straightforward and honest meaning to those beliefs we know that they are not true. It is, to-day, mainly a question of making plain the nature of the forces wh

-day, Freethought is the accepted mental attitude of a growing number of men and women whose intelligence admits of no question. It has taken a recognized place in the intellectual world, and its hold on the educated intelligence is rapidly increasing. It may well be that in one form or another the antagonism between critical Freethought and accepted teaching, whether secular or religious, will continue as one of the permanent aspects of social co