RECENTLY a member of the TPS resident in Sussex purchased an interesting manuscript from a Brighton bookseller. The MSS was in the hand of Mrs. Fitzherbert and is a copy of “OBSERVATIONS ON THE PREVAILING ABUSES in the British Army arising from the Corruption of Civil Government. With a proposal to the Officers towards obtaining an addition to their pay. By An Officer.” (Thomas Erskine, 1st. Baron Erskine,1750-1823).

The book has the heraldic bookplate of Thomas Clio Rickman and is bound ih 18th. century elaborately tooled red morocco, it measures 9 by 74 inches. Inserted is a letter dated 19th. November, 1842 from S.W. Burgess presenting the Mss to Mr. Justice Erskine (1788-1864), the fourth son of Lord Erskine, which states among other things that the MSS had been purchased “at the sale of “Clio” Rickmans (sic) Effects in 1840.” 

The text has been collated with the British Museum copy of the book (8287 de 88(2)) and shows a number of variants apart from a few scribal errors. An inscription on the fly-leaf in Rickman’s hand states that the MSS was “copied from the original by Maria in the year 1783”. 

Thomas “Clio” Rickman (1761-1834) was a prominent radical reformer, bookseller and propagandist. He was a close friend of Thomas Paine who subscribed to his book of poems and wrote the first friendly life of him. Rickman was associated with Whig circles, which included Erskine. Erskine made a name for himself as a defender of Paine and other reformers, but later sold out. As a favourite of the Prince of Wales was appointed attorney-general to him. Mrs. Fitzherbert entered London society in 1783, her full name being Mary Anne Fitzherbert (1756-1837), and became associated with the Whigs. She was always referred to as “Maria”. Two years later she married “Prinny”. 

The Revolution in France brought a reaction against reform and Rickman was threatened with prosecution for selling Paine’s works. He went into hiding aided by Mrs. Fitzherbert. 

The “Maria” referred to familiarly by Rickman on the Mss was manifestly Mrs. Fitzherbert, as a comparison of the handwriting of the manuscript against that of her extant letters demonstrates. Mrs. Fitzherbert had her work elegantly bound and presented it to Rickman. 

Erskine, who wrote the work copied out by “Maria” , had a colourful career. After much travel he bought a commission in the 2nd Battalion of the 1st. Royal Regiment of Foot and wrote his book as a farewell gesture on leaving the army in 1775 (he joined in 1767). Though published anonymously the work was early recognised as his and seems to have been suppressed as it is very rare. The inserted letter mentioned above states that no copy had ever been offered at auction.

The post Concerning A Manuscript Written By Mrs. Fitzherbert From The Library Of Thomas “Clio” Rickman appeared first on .

AS A BRITISH institution the public house has survived such varied adversaries as temperance propagandists and television. Whether is a sophisticated city or an unpretentious country pub, one can find relaxation there – and the paradox is that there is also a great deal to stimulate one as well, (even excluding what one drinks:). People feel free to talk their minds in a British pub, and, if like Thomas Paine, you have a good ear for what men and women say about the affairs of the world, you can get it there. 

Some social historians ought to dig the rich veins that I feel sure are to be discovered in our pubs, especially in their contribution to the struggles for freedom. Paine’s followers during the days of the hysterical opposition to ideas of liberty at the end of the eighteenth and the early nineteenth centuries often sound a friendly landlord, who would let them meet, discuss and drink a few toasts to the rights of man, to the liberty of the press and to so much that we today (almost) take for granted. 

It is for these reasons that I echo our President Michael Foot’s verdict on the decision of Watney Mann (East Anglia) Ltd., to call a new pub of theirs in Paine’s birthplace, Thetford, ‘Rights of Man’ a stroke of imagination. Doubly imaginative, in fact, to get Michael Foot to perform the opening ceremony and draw the traditional first pint of beer. 

Mr.Foot was introduced at the ceremony by the local director of Watney Mann (East Anglia), Mr. L.R. Canham, who said that the house was the result of a great deal of hard work, effort and imagination by a team of people. When I visited the site at Brandon Road towards the end of 1967, I saw the foundations and a foot or two of brick wall – and heard from the foreman builder some of the problems in keeping out the water of the nearby Little Ouse that somehow got into the diggings. 

Now there is a most pleasing single-story building that fits delightfully into the flat countryside of East Anglia. The decor features a large number of reproductions of Paine’s works and printed material about him, which are especially well-chosen in the Tom Paine lounge bar – I hope to study them in greater detail on another occasion. 

I want also to study more carefully the inn sign that was painted by Mr. E. Newsome and sign-writers in the Architects’ Department of the brewery; it shows a group of reformers, carrying a banner, inscribed ‘Rights of Man’, and it has the true flavour of the times of the struggle for liberty. If I am not mistaken, it is based on a contemporary print – it looks familiar to me, but the source eludes me (it is based on a “Criss of London” printed.). 

Perhaps, when the weather improves with the Spring, a visit of Society members can be organised to visit Thetford’s ‘Rights of Man’, as well as the other associations with Paine in the town. I take this opportunity of flying this kite, and hope members will write to the Secretary with their ideas for this. I am sure that the landlord, Mr. A.L. Goldstone and Mrs. Goldstone will make us welcome. But to return to the opening, I was delighted at the way the Thomas Paine Society was given honoured guest treatment. Our President rose magnificently to the occasion with a brief sketch of Paine’s life and his greatest work, Rights of Man. “Every time I hear his name,” Mr. Foot said, “I have a glow of English pride. Some may think this is an exaggerated claim, but, if the test of a great man is how far-seeing he can be about the world in which he lives, and how he assists in liberating human ways, then I believe this claim is justified.” 

Rights of Man, he continued, was the greatest democratic manifesto in the English language, and it had a bigger sale than any other book in its time except the Bible. Michael Foot, not being in Harold Wilson’s Cabinet may not have known of the current plans to reform the House of Lords, else he would have been tempted to quote extracts from Rights of Man on hereditary office-holders and legislators – there is always something topical about Paine’s writings. 

The local public library – always keenly aware of Paine being born and bred in Thetford – put on an excellent little exhibition from their marvellous collection of Paine material. Most of this comes from the late Ambrose G. Barker’s collection, which Miss Ella Twynam donated to Thetford, and their selection was most apt to the occasion. The exhibits contained a number of editions of Rights of Man – and I particularly noticed how these drew the attention of one of the specially invited guests, Henry Collins. A great admirer of Paine, Mr. Collins has written the introduction to the Pelican edition of Rights of Man, that is due to be published in 1969. 

Also in the exhibition was the very rare edition of part of The Age of Reason, published in Paris for M. Chateau in 1803, consisting only of Paine’s Essay on Dreams. What nobody can have realised, bearing in mind the occasion, is that this contains Paine’s warning about excess drinking. 

Our President, our Society, and I, were made to feel very much at home at Thetford’s ‘Rights of Man’. The kindness of the organisers of the event will, I know, be repaid many times over in visits by members to the pub in Brandon Road, while at the same . time we bear in mind Paine’s reminder that “long and habitual intemperance” often injures the brain!

The post A Stroke Of Imagination appeared first on .

STANZAS, Written on reading in an American newspaper an account of the death of Thomas Paine, author of Common Sense, Rights of Man, etc. By Alexander Rodger (1784 – 1846). 

Tom Paine is dead – Satan, be on thy guard; 

Remember, he’s thy most inveterate foe; 

Get thy strong Pandemonian gates well barr’d, 

Nor let him enter thy dark realms below. 

Else if thou do, prepare to meet thy fate

Nor longer vainly boast of being king

But quit thy throne – throw off thy robes of State

Thy crown and sceptre from thee quickly fling. 

For if his levelling doctrines once get ground, 

Thy sooty subjects will in fact rebel, 

Pull down thy throne, spread Deism around, 

Chop off thy head, and make a FRANCE of Hell.

Alexander Rodger was born at the village of East-Calder, Midlothian, on July 16, 1784, his father was a farmer but later moved to Edinburgh where the family broke up. Following this “Sandy” went to live in Glasgow where he was apprenticed as a weaver. 

Rodger became associated with working-class radical politics, writing political squibs for a journal called The Spirit of the Union. Shortly after joining the staff of the journal the editor was charged with sedition, found guilty, and sentenced to transportation for life. “Sandy”, also went to prison, being convicted of “revolutionary practices”. The unfortunate editor was Gilbert McLeod. 

Rodger led an active political life after release, though he had to leave his journalism and return to his trade of weaving, ‘ however, he obtained the post of inspector of printed cloth in a local works. Later he tried his hand at pawnbroking and eventually back to journalism as reader and assistant reporter of local news for the Glasgow Chronicle. He followed this with a post on the Liberator and then the Reformers Gazette. He died on September 26, 1846. 

Rodger often recalled, with some amusement, the time when his home was searched for seditious publications.”Sandy” handed the Sheriff’s Officer, who was making the search, the family Bible as a treasonable work and referred him to the chapter on Kings in 1st Samuel.

The post Alexander Rodger’s Stanzas on Thomas Paine’s Death appeared first on .

IT DOES NOT fall to the lot of many authors to produce a work which 175 years after the date of publication remains a source of inspiration and controversy. Thomas Paine’s book, The Age of Reason, is one of the select few coming into that category. 

The Age of Reason is without doubt one of the truly great deistical works in the English language. Though by no means the first such work, it certainly became the most influential and widely read of such books. The controversy aroused was carried on with impassioned intensity, an intensity *hick makes it almost impossible outside the pages of a large volume to give an adequate description. 

Paine directed his words towards the awakening working class, not only of Britain but of all countries. He wrote with a clarity of mean- ing and a simplicity of language that made his words go home to his readership Nith a force few other works have managed. This, in the eyes of established authority, was the greatest danger they presented. The workers of the 18th, century formed a class which hardly merits the description litera.,;e. Many of those able to read were in some form of mental blinkers as they were strongly influenced by the prejudices of low church evangelism on one hand and methodism or other forms of religious dissent on the other. The character of the class is all too well illustrated by the actions of the “Church and King” mob responsible for burning the home and library of the Unitarian Priestley. 

Yet when all is said about the generally hostile climate of opinion among workers towards unorthodox views, it remains evident that there existed a growing group among them who saw in Paine’s work ideas which accurately reflected their own opinions. His criticism of institutionalised religion must have struck deep into the minds of many religious dissenters, for by no means all dissent was strictly theological and lacked political Motivation. The followers of Alexander Kilham, who broke away from Methodism to form the Methodist . New Connexion in 1797, certainly appear to have been influenced by him for there are frequent references to them in association with Paine’s name. In Huddersfield they were called ‘Tom Paine Methodists’, while a chapel in Halifax they formed a reading and debating club where Paine’s works were among those discussed. The official methodist Conference, in explanation of the Kilham secession to their Church in Ireland, stated: “We shall lose all the turbulent disturbers of our Zion….all who have embraced the sentiments of Paine…” (E.P. Thompson. The Making of the English Working Class (1968), pp.48-49.)

It was not Paine’s intention to publish his views on religion until old age, but, as he tells us in The Age of Reason, a situation arose which rendered “a work of this kind exceedingly necessary.” The ruling oligarchy in Britain thought otherwise. Whatever the sceptical attitudes towards religion on the part of many members of the aristocracy, the impact of the French Revolution had closed their ranks in fear of the growing working class emulating their fellows in France. A campaign had been instituted to rid Britain of all but views favourable in religion as in politics to the status quo. The warring actions among the oligarchy who, as M.W. Wiseman (J.M. Robertson) wrote, “a few years before had been scandalising the pious by their Deism and disrespect to the reigning creed”, were hastily converted to the conviction that orthodoxy must be maintained among the working masses. (The Dynamics of Religion (1897), p.197.) As religion was considered very much a part of the structure of government in the 18th. century, the unholy alliance between reverent and irreverent sections of the aristocracy posed no real problems. The important thing was to ensure that religion continued to inculcate in the minds of working people an abject resignation to their lot in life, and a humble acceptance of the unquestioned right of their “betters” to lord it over them. As the Duchess of Buckingham expressed it concerning some flickerings of the notion of spiritual equality on the part of religious dissenters: “It is monstrous to be told that you have a heart as sinful as the common wretches that crawl on the earth.” (J.H. Whiteley. Wesley’s England (1938), p.328.)

The Christian religion is strictly an authoritarian system; it faithfully mirrors the nature of society as existing during its formative years. When adopted by the secular Roman authorities it gave by way of reward the claim that they derived their powers directly from God, and consequently they were beyond challenge from mere mortal men. Paine struck at the roots of this by bluntly denying the right so claimed, and asserting the equality of men. He stated that all churches (including the non—Christian variety) had been established to enslave mankind and monopolize power and profit. Paine developed his Mittme with a two pronged attack against the fundamental tenets on which the theory of divine authority was erected, revelation and the historicity of biblical stories. Of the two the most important is the former, as much of the latter is in fact an attempt to validate revelation. 

Paine did not deny revelation, as a believer in a god he had to admit its possibility. However, he did make against it the simple, but devastatingly destructive point that revelation was only such to the recipient, to all others it was hearsay. “To put faith in it is not to put faith in God but in the man”, Paine writes, “from whom the account comes; and that man may have been deceived, or he may have dreamed it, or he may be an impostor and may lie’. There is no possible criterion whereby to judge the truth of what he tells, for even the morality of it would be no proof of revelation.” 

The force of Paine’s argument was not lost upon his opponents, for to destroy revelation you destroy along with it the authority of the Church and that with which it vests others. The whole structure of Christianity, as Karl Barth shows, rests on revelation. 

The destruction of church authority achieved by Paine, reduced Christianity to the level of but a philosophy and nothing more. This is the theoretical position of many leading theologians of the present day; aware cf the impossibility of demonstrating the historicity of the New Testament stories they have adopted a policy of demythology, a process which some Christian observers see as not only throwing out the baby with the bathwater but the bath as well. The end product of all this is to make Christianity representative of an attitude towards life and the world, as against its original dogmatic authoritarianism. 

Here we arrive at two significant contributions Paine – introduced into theological debate, and which gave The Age of Reason a lasting significance; first, the. appeal to science; second, the democratic spirit displayed. Throughout The Age of Reason there are frequent references and appeals to science, particularly astronomy, to get points across. Science in Paine’s day was seen in terms of its being compatible with holy writ; Paine adopted a position completely at variance with this and his use of science becomes a radical departure from the general attitude prevalent at that period in time. It is well to rem2mber•that specific biblical claims were looked on as established scientific facts, thus the age of the earth was computed from the Bible and the generally accepted date arrived at incorporated as late as 1701 into the margins of Bishop William Lloyd’s edition of the Bible, there to remain uncontested for almost two centuries. 

Likewise with geology. The advance of geological knowledge was greatly retarded by, among other the notion of a universal deluge derived from the Bible. (W.L. Edwards, The Early History of Palaeontoloa (1967), p.11.) The bitter controversies of the early 19th century between the catastrophists (who held that in geological history there had been a number of successive epochs — of which the latest was than of Noah — during which there were major upheavals leading the destruction of all life and after an interval the world was restocked with a new assemblage of animal and plant life) and the uniformitarians (who held that the world as we see it is the product of steady, slow processes), the former being represented by a number of clerical geologists such as Buckland (Buckland later modified his position, though not as fully as

L.K. Clark maintains in his Pioneers of Prehista and (1961), pp.90-91.), Sedgwick and Conybeare, while the latter were led by Lyell (Lyell was a strong supporter of South Place Ethical Chapel when it was under the leadership of Dr. Moncure Conway, author of the best

study of Paine’s life yet published. See S.K. Ratcliffe,The Storm of South Place (1955), pp.44-45. Geikie on the other hand never seems to have grown out of his father’s somewhat dull nonconformist views, his father having been an official of the Argyle Square Chapel, Edinburgh. See Life of W. Lindsay Alexander by J. Ross (1887) a.195.), Geike, and Scrope. Well has Zittel commented on geology in Britain when he wrote: “…there more than in any other country, theological doctrines always effected geological conceptions.” (Quoted by J.W. Judd in his book The Coming of Evolution (1910) p.31.) It was in such an atmosphere that Paine used science against religion, a truly revolutionary step. 

The frantic efforts to make science conform to scripture failed and it was Paine’s approach which eventually won out, though many years after his death. His approach was reflected in the steady increase and influence of biblical and social criticism. Theologians were forced to take cognizance of the abyss between traditional theology and what modern had to accept from their scientific and other enquiries, and realise that it could not be bridged by trickery or pretending no such differences existed. Thus they were forced back on the defensive. The triumph of science owes no small credit to the work of Paine, it owes him a debt of gratitude as yet largely unrepayed. 

Paine, as we have seen, saw all men as equals. His concept of society was one run along co-operative lines. He rejected without qualification a state patterned along New Testament lines in which each individual had his or her divinely appointed place, and which looked for a post mortem solution to human problems. The Duchess of Buckingham, who we have already quoted, might speak of the working class becoming “tinctured with impertinence and disrespect towards their Superiors”, or the hymn writer sing of:

“A rich man in his castle, the poor man at his gate, 

“God made them high and lowly, and ordered their estate.” 

But the class on which they looked down was waking up, and under the influence of Paine’s great works was rejecting a concept of society which relegated the great mass of people to the status of animals to be used only to enable a small group to live in the lap of luxury. 

Paine appealed to reason, his ultimate cause was a democratic system of society. His spirit stands in glaring contrast to that of the politico-religious dictators who lorded it over most nations when he wrote, and who have their counterparts today in dictators such as Franco, who destroyed the liberties of the Spanish people, and the latter-day Al Capones who sit astride the banks of the Greek people.

The Age of Reason was influential because it made its case out in an easy to understand manner, if you like a journalistic style. It struck at authoritarian religion but it was not an anti-religious work. The only authority Paine accepted was that of reason, thus in the last analysis each and every individual had to arrive at his own distinctive religious philosophy by his own efforts. The Age of Reason is fundamentally a democratic treatise, therein lies its strength, likewise its relevance for today. Paine spoke out in the interests of ordinary men and women against a politico-religious ruling class; the response was initially slow but gained momentum. Paine’s words had a quality of sincerity that moved men deeply. They inspired men to action; they still retain that quality.

The post The Relevance Of The “Age Of Reason” For Today appeared first on .

THE CONTENT MATTER of literature coming from the evangelical wing of the Christian Church is usually so silly as to deserve little serious consideration. From time to time you meet the odd item worthy of closer study, but such times are few and far between. A booklet I came across recently fits into the category of those unworthy of attention on all points but one, it is this one point that makes the booklet worthy of further consideration — but only in regard to this one issue. The booklet concerned is entitled The Impossibility of Agnosticism by the Reverend Leith Samuel (there is no indicatic,n in the booklet that the author is a professional religionist), an: is published by the Inter—Varsity Fellowship. The paint that arrested my attention was the claim made on pages nine and ten that Thomas Paine recanted of his deistical views. 

Stories of Paine’s recantation or conversion were once the stock in trade of any self-respecting evangelical preacher or writer. In our more sophisticated age with its closer attention to detail, claims of such a specific nature have given way to those of a more general character, thus we hear little of the alleged conversions of Darwin or Bradlaugh, and more of the conversions of anonymous groups of men on rafts in the middle of the ocean after their ship had been sunk, through their prayers being answered, or so it is claimed. Mr.Samuel is, however, one of the old school, hence we get the story of Paine’s recantation, and, for good measure no doubt, that of Voltaire’s also. 

Both Paine and Voltaire are, according to Mr. Samuel, en record as having, when faced with death, second thoughts. They were, our reverend cleric assures us, among “the most ardent (pursuers) of pleasure”, who, when approaching death, started to “sit up and think.” Now while being no expert on Voltaire I do know enough to reject Mr. Samuel’s claim in regard to the French philosopher; in Paine’s case, on the other hand, I have studied the matter in great depth and would retort to Mr. Samuel that he is talking just so much rubbish! 

Mr. Samuel’s tale is taken from the memoirs of Stephen Grellet, an American religious fanatic of French extraction. He was told it by an employee, one Mary Roscoe. Another identical tale, unmentioned by Mr. Samuel, is derived from a Charles Collins, who was told it by one Mary Hinsdale. Both women are one, Hinsdale being the married name of Roscoe. Mary Roscoe was employed by a Quaker religious leader, Willett Hicks, a friend of Paine’s, during the time Paine was dying. She claims to have been sent to deliver an item to Paine and while there to have conversed. with him. Paine, she tells us, called out “with intense feeling”, “Lord Jesus have mercy upon me” and, “if ever the Devil has had any agency in any work he has had it in me writing that in (The Age of Reason) Paine is supposed to have asked Roscoe’s opinion of the book and later to have expressed a wish to like her, burned it. Having been but instructed. by Hicks to deliver something to Paine, the original claim, Roscoe developed it into one of “constant” attendance. Such is her tale as related by Grellel, and Collins, Needless to say there is not a scrap of evidence to corroborate it. 

When the present writer challenged the truth of his claim that Paine had recanted, Mr. Samuel replied (letter of June, 29, 1967) that “The unimpeachable testimony of this gentleman (Grellet) seemed to outweigh anything found from contrary sources.” Unfortunately, as was later revealed, Mr. Samuel had not bothered to look up what the “contrary sources” had to say on the matter. 

Roscoe’s tale was exposed as a lie by William Cobbett, who met and cross-examined both her and Collins. Mr. Samuel was quite stunned when this was brought to his attention, and makes (letter of July 7) the lame excuse that he was “unaware” of it – this after laying it down that Grellet’s testimony outweighed “anything” from “contrary sources”. It seems all too clear that Mr. Samuel just did not bother to do his homework, a fact which did not, however, prevent him from allowing no fewer than fourteen reprints of his booklet since it originally appeared in 1950! 

William Cobbett while in New York in 1818 began to collect material for a life of Paine, in doing so he became acquainted with both Mary Hinsdale (Roscoe) and Charles Collins. Collins informed Cobbett that Paine had recanted. Cobbett requested evidence and Collins produced a paper containing a statement, so he maintained, made by Hinsdale. Armed with this document, Ccbbett called on Hinsdale-then living at 10, Anthony Street, New York, and showed it her, requesting its authentication, this Hinsdale refused to give, maintaining that she could give no information as to any of the document being true, she claimed never to have seen the paper before, nor to have given Collins any authorisation, to speak in her name. So the story should have faded into the mists of obscurity, like its alleged author. However, such is not to be the case for along comes Mr. Samuel to resurrect it. Roscoe, who, incidentally, took opium, also invented an•the/ recantation story, this time concerning a Quaker by name Mary Lockwood. Roscoe, meeting the brother of Lockwood (after the woman had died) told him his sister had recanted and wanted her (Roscoe) to say so at the funeral. This claim was fully and publicly demonstrated as pure fiction, or in other words, nothing but lies. Such, then, is the character of Roscoe; even Collins told another biographer of Paine, the American Gilbert Vale, that it was commonly held among her fellow religionists that no credit should be given to her statements. This, then, is the source of Mr. Samuel’s tale. Either Grellet was taken in by Roscoe – which is quite possible, or, and this is equally possible, he deliberately lIdd. So much for the “unimpeachable testimony” Mr.Samuel relies so uncritically on. 

Willett Hicks, Roscoe’s employer at the time site was supposed t) be constantly attending Paine, pronounced her story as “pious fraud and fabrication”, he said that he had never sent her with anything to deliver to Paine, and that she had never spoken with him. He is also on record as telling of the many bribes he was offered to produce a statement from Paine recanting of his religious opinions.

Against Grellet’s testimony must be set that of many others who confirm Paine retained his deistical views until the last. Wesley Jarvis tells us of Paine’s fear that stories such as Grellet relates would be invented after his death, thus he insisted on always having witnesses present when being interviewed. When Paine learned of the fatal nature of his illness he solemnly reaffirmed his opinions in the presence of a group of witnesses who included his physician, Dr. Romaine. Then there is the evidence of Dr. J.R. Manley – no friend of Paine – taken under oath. This gentleman testifies to the fact of there being no change in Paine’s religious outlook three days before his death, according to Dr.Manley, Paine flatly refused to accept Christ. Much more could be produced, but need we do so? The only unanswered question is why Mr. Samuel should have dragged up the tale once more, particularly as he admits to not having bothered to research it? 

Mr. Samuel quite fails to grasp Paine’s intention in writing The Age of Reason, so much so that I suspect him as having never read it. Paine’s “unsparing temper”, to quote John M. Robertson, “was exactly that of the Christian Fathers against pagan beliefs and lore….it (is) essentially the tone of the religious man, offended by what he regarded as a superstition calculated to drive thinking men to atheism.” In seeking to promote his faith the Rev. Leith Samuel does himself and his religion little credit by bearing false witness, and I would remind him of the condemnation of this in Exodus 23;1., or the commandment against it, which is repeated in Rom. 13. Perhaps, then, he will do as Zacchaeus promised in Luke 19 and make amends. He is if nothing else under a moral obligation to do so as is his publisher. Future editions of The Impossibility of Agnosticism should have the tale expunged, as also that relating to Voltaire, and Mr. Samuel should display courage in apologising for smearing the memory of a man unable to make any reply. If he, and his publisher, fail to do this it will amount to a condemnation of everything he, and they, stand for.

“It is an affront to truth to treat falsehood with complaisance.” – Thomas Paine.

The post The Paine Conversion Myth  appeared first on .

PAINE INTENDED The Age of Reason to defend ‘true religion’ from the attacks of atheists. It proved, on the contrary, by the common admission both of his enemies and friends, to be ‘the Bible of the atheists’. And atheists, especially, both hitherto and now, have done and are doing everything to preserve for posterity the name and the works of the great freethinker. 

In deciding the basic question of Paine’s philosophy, it stands out that he is a materialist – even though a one less consistent than his contemporaries, the French materialists of the eighteenth century. 

According to Paine, a real material world exists outside man and his consciousness: ‘Whether we sleep or wake, the vast machinery of the universe still goes on.’ Man cannot by his own will alter creation: ‘It is an evert-existing original, which every man can read. It cannot be forged; it cannot be counterfeited; it cannot be lost; it cannot be altered; it cannot be suppressed.’ 

Matter, as Paine thought, generates mind; therefore matter is primary and thought, its derivative, secondary. ‘Who can say’, he asks, ‘what exceeding fine section of fine matter it is that produces a thought in what we call the mind?’ 

He concentrated all the force of his criticism on the Bible, which played an immense role in the life of Protestant America. The least doubt of the truth of the Bible was considered the gravest transgression; and the doubter was cruelly persecuted and punished. Clearly the exposure of Biblical fictions undermined religious beliefs and furthered the spread of unbelief. 

Paine relied on the results of scientific criticism of the Bible begun by Hobbes and Spinoza and continued by the English deists: Anthony Collins (1676-17P9), Thomas Chubb (1679-1747), Matthew Tindal (1653-17Y3), Thomas Wooliton (1670-1733) and others. Besides popularizing their results he advanced some original conjectures. 

Be begins by attacking the belief in the divine origin of the Bible and the idea of revelation as Spinoza and the English deists had already done. What is this revelation and what does Paine mean? He explains: Revelation is a communication of something which the person to whom the thing is revealed did not know before. For if I have done a thing, or seen it done, it needs no revelation to tell me I have done it, or seen it; nor enable me to tell it, or write it. Revelation, therefore, cannot be applied to anything done upon earth of which man himself is the actor or the witness; and consequently all the historical and anecdotal part of the Bible, which is almost the whole of it is not within the meaning and compass of the s word revelation, and, therefore, is not the word of God.’ 

Moncure Conway, in his biography of Paine, considers his treatment of the New Testament as more valuable than the discoveries of such representatives of the historical school of criticism as Baur and Strauss. Conway thinks it is a merit of his approach to have shown how the historical Jesus is derived from the mythical Christ. Paine does not go so far as to deny a historical Christ, but states for the first time that the problem of whether Christ existed or not is of no importance.

The mere existence of Mazy, Joseph and Jesus, he writes, ‘is a matter of indiffer- . ence, about which there is no ground either to relieve or disbelieve, and which comes under the common bead of “It may be so; and what then?”‘ Again; ‘It is not, then, the existence or non•existence of the persons that I trouble myself about; it is the fable of Jesus Christ, as told in the New Testament, and the wild and visionary doctrine raised thereon, against which I contend.’ 

He makes the most of the fact that, even if all four gospels agreed with one another, that would not demonstrate the truth of their contents, but that if they do not agree – with one another, their contents are a fortiori false…

The ethics of the Old Testament were obnoxious to him, and in a bitter, destructive fashion he exposes their infirmity. In The Age of Reason he writes: ‘Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and tortuous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness with which more than half the Bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we called it the word of a demon than the word of God. It is a history of wickedness„ that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind; and, for my own part, I sincerely detest it, as I detest everything that is cruel.’ 

A great part of the Bible is ‘scarcely anything but a history of the grossest vices. To read the Bible without horror, we ‘most undo everything that is tender, sympathizing, and benevolent in the heart of man. Speaking for myself, if I had no other evidence that the Bible is fabulous than the sacrifice I must make to believe it to be true, that alone would be sufficient to determine my choice.’ 

The Age of Reason was first published in France (to begin with in English, and then also in French, in a translation by the wife of Condorce,,). There,it made no – particular impression, since long before 1794 the French reader had been acquainted with the atheist literature of the French Enlightenment, In England where Paine had ) been outlawed, the publication and distribution of his work were subject to every kind of persecution. For publishing Paine’s pamphlet, An Examination of Prophecies, Daniel Eaton was sentenced to stand once a month in the pillory and to e±even months imprisonment. 

In 1819 Richard Carlile, for publishing the ‘theological’ works of Paine, was fined £1,500 and sentenced to three years’ imprisonment. The reading and dissemination of an ‘atheistical’ book written by an author who bad been outlawed, the publication and distribution his work caused Marx to contemplate in a letter to the New York Pally Tribune (1854) that ‘It is no wonder if Thomas Paine’ Rights of Man was publicly burnt in this free and happy country.’ Nevertheless, in spite of various obstacles, Paine’s books reached the English reader. 

Engels repeatedly pointed to the popularity among the English working class of the ‘well-known democrat’, Thomas Paine. In 1843, in Letters from London, Engels described working-class meetings at which. ‘Christianity is subjected to downright attack, and Christians are called “our enemies”‘. Besides, he added emphatically: ‘Workers now have in good cheap editions, translations of the works of French philosophers of the last century, chiefly Rousseau’s Social Contract, the ‘System of Nature, and various works of Voltaire; moreover, in penny or twopenny pamphlets and in newspapers they find an explanation of Communist principles; to just the same way there are in the hands of workers cheap editions of the works of Thomas Paine and Shelley.’ 

In 1845 Engels called George Forster, who had supported the French !evolution at the end of the eighteenth century and died on the scaffold, a German Thomas Paine. Writing to a meeting of Chartists in London at the end of 1845 in connection with the anniversary of the proclamation of the French Republic of 1792, Engels emphasized the fact that participants in the meeting ‘honoured the memory of Thomas Paine and the democrats of all lands’. 

As is shown by the latest investigation by Webb# of the literature read by English workers, the works of Paine, in spite of all impediments, made their way among the working class and were in particular demand. In working-class newspapers and periodicals, especially in the Poor Man’s Guardian, the works of Paine were advertised in every way. 

The Age of Reason exerted an anti-religious influence on the world class reader even at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth century. Merciless criticism of the Bible, revelations of the hypocrisy of tho clergy, a passionate call to readers to rely on the facts of Nature and human reason, and not on prevalent religious beliefs – all this, which constituted the spirit and content of The Age of Reason, in combination with Paine’s political radicalism and straightforward humanism, determined the attitude to him of different social groups both in his life and after his death. 

Today, as 150 years ago, the words of Thomas Paine sound like a battle-cry: ‘All national institutions of Churches, whether Jewish, Christian or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profits.” 

*R.K.Webb, The British Working Class Reader, 1790. 1848 (London, 1955).

The above article was originally published in the Annual of the Museum of the History of Religion and Atheism, Leningrad, 1960, No. IV. It was translated by the late Archibald Robertzon and a digest of it published in The Humanist for December, 1961.

The post Paine As A Biblical Critic appeared first on .