Freethought

“ What a boon it is to think freely, to let the intellect dart out in quest of truth at every point of the compass, to feel the delight of the chase and the gladness of capture! What a noble privilege to pour treasures of knowledge into the alembic of the brain, and separate the gold from the dross!
The Freethinker takes nothing on trust, if he can help it ”

“ When such a man carries destructive criticism to its utmost limits, we may well congratulate ourselves on a signal triumph of Freethought. And we may also find comfort in the fact that nobody thinks of flinging a stone at Mr. ”

“ But whether true or not, there should be no question that it involves a lower view of human nature than the one taken by the Freethinker. He does at least pay human nature the compliment of believing it capable, not alone of framing high ideals, but also of realizing them. ”

“ Sometimes it takes the form of idle stories about the death-beds of Freethinkers, who are represented as deploring their ill-spent life, and bewailing the impossibility of recalling the wicked opinions they have put into circulation. ”

“ That much at least of possible 'truth' the terms will then have in them.
Let me take up another well-worn controversy, THE FREE-WILL PROBLEM. Most persons who believe in what is called their free-will do so after the rationalistic fashion. It is a principle, a positive faculty or virtue added to man, by which his dignity is enigmatically augmented. He ought to believe it for this reason. Determinists, who deny it, who say that individual men originate nothing, but merely transmit to the future the whole push of the past cosmos of which they are so small an expression, diminish man. ”

“ But can it be maintained that the same truth holds good of our consciousness of freedom? Is it possible to hold that determinist arguments are of so convincing a character as to enable us to perceive at the moment of action the untrustworthy nature of our consciousness that we are free to choose between alternatives and to grasp beneath the appearance the underlying necessity which rules our wills? Our actual consciousness of freedom is not seriously disputed. ”

“ The art of seeing, the art of knowing what you see; the art of comparing, of perceiving true likenesses and true differences, and so of classifying and arranging what you see: the art of connecting facts together in your own mind in chains of cause and effect, and that accurately, patiently, calmly, without prejudice, vanity, or temper—this is what is wanted for true freedom of mind. But accuracy, patience, freedom from prejudice, carelessness for all except the truth, whatever the truth may be—are not these the virtues of a truly free spirit? ”

“ But the two other derivations of free-thought are honestly intended; as a matter of fact, many free-thinkers are created in one or other of these ways. For this reason, however, the tenets to which they attain in this manner might be truer and more reliable than those of the fettered spirits. In the knowledge of truth, what really matters is the possession of it, not the impulse under which it was sought, the way in which it was found. ”

“ This freethinker has so free a spirit that every philosophy he does not accept appears to him, not only ridiculous and grotesque, but criminal. He flatters himself that he alone is in possession of the absolute truth. ”

“ The truth is, All might be free if they valued freedom, and defended it as they ought. ”

“ In the 2nd, That it is our duty to think freely on those points of which men are denied the right to think freely: such as of the nature and attributes of God, the truth and authority of Scriptures, and of the meaning of Scriptures, in seven arguments and eleven instances. The third section is the consideration of six objections to Freethinking—from the whole of which he concludes (1) That Freethinkers must have more understanding, and that they must necessarily be the most virtuous people. (2) That they have, in fact, been the most understanding and virtuous people in all ages. ”

“ But only external freedom, the only freedom they often know. They are unaware that they forfeit thereby the real, the inner freedom. “Thou aimest at free heights,” admonishes even the most impetuous herald of freedom, [pg 270] “thy soul is athirst for stars. But also thy wicked impulses are athirst for freedom. Thy wild hounds want to be free, they bark joyfully in their kennel when thy spirit essays to throw open all dungeons.”11 They think to be free and speak of the self-assurance of individual reason, and they cannot see that the mind is in the fetters of bondage. ”

“ Unfortunately, freedom of thought exists. What one of us would not put manacles and fetters upon his thoughts, if he only could? What persecution have any of us suffered to compare with the involuntary recurrence of these demons that enter our brain—that bring back past events that we would wipe out with our tears, or even with our blood—and make us slaves of a power unseen but uncontrollable and uncontrolled? Is it not unworthy of so eloquent and intelligent a man to preach before you here to-night that thought must always be free? ”

“ And here I must take leave to tell you, although you cannot but have perceived it from what I have already said, and shall be still more amply convinced by what is to follow, that freethinking signifies nothing, without freespeaking and freewriting. It is the indispensable duty of a freethinker, to endeavour forcing all the world to think as he does, and by that means make them freethinkers too. You are also to understand, that I allow no man to be a freethinker, any farther than as he differs from the received doctrines of religion. ”

“ The whole social edifice rests ultimately upon the freedom of thought, and arises out of it. First, there is freedom, that original and uncaused act by which the mind thinks itself, its own sensations, appetites, and desires, and in doing so frees or disengages itself from them; or, stated with equal truth in the converse way, that original and uncaused act by which the mind disengages itself from itself, from its own sensations, appetites, and desires, and in doing so thinks them: for, as I formerly said, the disengagement and the thought, the freedom and the conception, are identical ”

“ What is the freedom of the most free? ”

“ For, supposing man not to be originally free, let us ask how is the end of human liberty to be attained? Is it to be attained by passively imbibing the various impressions forced upon us from without? Is it to be attained by yielding ourselves up in pliant obedience to the manifold modifications which stamp their moulds upon us from within? ”

“ FREE-THINKER A RELATIVE TERM.—We call that man a free-thinker who thinks otherwise than is expected of him in consideration of his origin, surroundings, position, and office, or by reason of the prevailing contemporary views. He is the exception, fettered minds are the rule ; these latter reproach him, saying that his free principles either have their origin in a desire to be remarkable or else cause free actions to be inferred,—that is to say, actions which are not compatible with fettered morality. ”

“ I think, however, I may properly say that, viewing the problem on the spiritual side, and carefully excluding popular prepossessions and theological dogmas, I have carried the opposite doctrine of "freedom" to its legitimate logical consequences in the conclusion that every being that wills is a creative first cause, having, in virtue of its attributes of knowledge, feeling, and volition, a power of itself to begin action. ”

“ Our claim to free will is a righteous claim; will can only be free, whether its object be right or [137] wrong; it is a matter of choice and there is no choice but free choice. But we are apt to translate free will into free thought. We allow ourselves to sanction intellectual anarchism and forget that it rests with the will to order the thoughts of the mind fully as much as the feelings of the heart or the lusts of the flesh. Our thoughts are not our own and we are not free to think as we choose. ”

“ No form of our knowing can be surer109 than this. To discredit it is to discredit that without whose help not a step in knowledge can be taken. Upon this fundamental and unsurpassable evidence rests the great fact of free-will. No person, in the simple light of his unperverted and unperplexed consciousness, doubts his free-will. He finds himself in exercise and use of it every day and every hour. He knows himself to be perpetually making decisions within his own liberty, if he knows anything. ”

“ Such a doctrine is repugnant to our natural sense, and contradicts our own consciousness and inward experience. We feel that we are free, and all human action proceeds on the principle of supposing man to be free. We teach and we punish. ”

“ That mind is free which enjoys a full and chaste development of all its powers, passions and emotions; which knows and observes its relations; which can concentrate its thoughts on a single point; which, when it looks abroad upon nature's works, beholds the reflected power and wisdom of a God; or, which, as it gazes upon the azure sky, the verdant forest, the beautiful river, the sparkling lake, the storm-rolling ocean, feels inexpressible delight and reverence. Such is the meaning which our government attaches to the phrase "freedom of mind." What in the nature of things can be clearer? ”

“ Thus thought is "free" when it is free from certain kinds of outward control which are often present. Some of these kinds of control which must be absent if thought is to be "free" are obvious, but others are more subtle and elusive. ”

“ To proceed immediately to concrete examples, cast a glance at the belief in 'free will,' demolished with such specious persuasiveness recently by the skilful hand of Professor Fullerton. [Footnote: Popular Science Monthly, N. Y., vols. lviii and lix.] When a common man says that his will is free, what does he mean? He means that there are situations of bifurcation inside of his life in which two futures seem to him equally possible, for both have their roots equally planted in his present and his past. ”

“ The reasonable activity of man has always been—it could not be otherwise—to light by the torch of reason his progress toward beatitude. Philosophy tells us that free-will is an illusion, and then boasts of the boldness of such a declaration. ”

“ He sees instincts are better and stronger than so-called ‘principles.’ He sees in the hour of need what are called ‘rights’ laughed at, ‘freedom,’ the liberty to do what one pleases, trampled on, the claims of the individual trodden under foot, and theories burst like cobwebs. ”

“ JESUIT.—You have a strange opinion of future contingents: why, you must be entirely ignorant that man is free, and that our free-will disposes of everything in this sublunary world at its mere fancy and pleasure. ”

“ But free will is not only an illusion; it is a word that has really no meaning. It is a word invented by theologians and legislators; and to try to disprove its existence is but wrestling with a windmill. ”

“ When you speak to us plainly, you have to say that you really understand a man to be free, and free in no other sense than a falling stone, or than running water. In the one case there is as little necessity as in the other, and just as much freedom. ”

“ WILL.
We lay it down as a first principle—from which we can no more depart than from the consciousness of existence—that man is free; and therefore stand ready to embrace whatever is fairly included in the definition of freedom. ”

“ What we mean by the "freedom" of the will is not ability to do anything without thinking, but ability to think all the alternatives together and to act on this larger thought. Free action is the fullest expression of thought and of the Self which thinks it. ”

“ This liberty will further deliver us from the painful weight of a fictitious responsibility and a dangerous illusion.
Woe to us, when we believe ourselves responsible for matters that do not concern us, and delude ourselves with the idea that we are perfecting things that will perfect themselves quite independently of us! ”

“ The more abiding and logically coherent my various purposes in action, the freer I am, because it is my whole self or system of rationally connected interests, and not the insistence of others, or some passing whim or impulse which I may forthwith disown as no part of my “true self,” which is getting expression in my outward deeds. And if it were possible for a finite being to become absolutely free, as we have seen that it is not, such a being would, in the very moment of its entire deliverance, become also absolutely determined from within ”

“ Facts are, in general, more intelligible than speculations, and also, in general, more satisfactory. I shall therefore endeavour to show you what the facts are in virtue of which I pronounce thought to be free. These facts will show you what we mean by saying that thought is free. We have seen that when a man feels a sensation, and that when, moreover, he thinks this sensation, he thinks not only it, but something more than it. ”

“ It can, I conceive, be made quite clear that the assertion, "The will is free," is one without meaning, until we analyze more fully the different meanings to be attached to the word free. Now this word has a perfectly well-defined signification in every-day life. We say that anything is free when it is not subject to external constraint. We also know exactly what we mean when we say that a man is free to do a certain act. ”

“ When we have made that discovery, and are steadily acting upon it, we are free indeed, and with this new liberty there grows a clear sense and conviction of a wise, loving Power which, while leaving us our own free will, is always tenderly guiding us. ”

“ Men say to themselves and to one another, "Yes, I shall be freer to act, I shall be nobler in my action, but I shall certainly enchain mind and spirit, I shall certainty bind myself to think, away from the rich freedom of thought in which I have been inclined to live." ”