This paperback should prompt many to re-think their attitudes towards weaker non-human species generally. It is fitting to conclude with a quotation from Paine’s, The Age of Reason: ‘The moral duty of man consists in imitating the moral goodness of God, manifested in the creation towards all his creatures”
Paine had been a member of the National Convention; and it is pleasant to know, as an Englishman, that on the trial of Louis XVI, he voted for the King’s being pardoned. He was imprisoned during the time of terror, and narrowly escaped with his life.
Thomas Muir was one of the seven Scottish martyrs sentenced to Botany Bay in 1793 for sedition. The charges included circulating Rights of Man. He met Thomas Paine in Paris.
Although described as being in poor condition, the fact of it having been published in Canada intrigued me, for while I have seen many editions of this famous work originating from many lands, I had never seen a Canadian edition of Paine’s The Age of Reason.
The First Canadian Edition Of The Age Of Reason? Read Post »
Paine’s genius though, transcends continents and races just as it does centuries. Man whose rights he champions is undifferentiated. The message is as relevant and pressing today in Africa as it was in 1791 in Europe and America. That is truly heroic.
Although the second-rank Girondins who remained alive were restored, like him, to their seats in the Convention in 1794, and were influential in producing the directorial constitution of the Year III, that attempt to get back to the principles of 1789 was no more successful than the first revolutionary constitution
