Although Thomas Paine is best known for his role as a revolutionary, political and social reformer and biblical critic, like many of his circle of friends and acquaintances he had a passionate interest in science, or, as it was then termed, natural philosophy.
The failure to recognise the contribution of Burdon to the development of Sunderland and the North-East and the expansion of the application of iron, apart from the production of a beautiful bridge, is made worse in a way by the fact that Burdon’s sole excursions from his enforced retirement after 1803.
If Paine would feel at home there, he would also fight to protect this nascent medium. Learning what had happened to the media he founded as corporations moved in, he would spot commercialization as Danger Number One.
I decided to visit the United States as it was the month Paine had set out to go there in 1774, the first of his five journeys across the Atlantic. My visit would coincide with the Annual General Meeting of the Thomas Paine-Huguenot Historical Society.
Paine was not a Mason, but like all the American, British or French Masons with whom be used to mix, he was a builder; the builder of a democratic system or Ideal based on freedom, equality, social solidarity, and brotherhood.
Thomas Paine, Freemasonry And The American Revolution Read Post »
Unfortunately this new book, although well written and giving a reasonably comprehensive insight into the background events which the author feels influenced the development of Paine’s thinking, I do not think it gets above the routine.
Reactions to Paine have coloured the understanding and appreciation of him, and he has been recognised as primarily a political or religious figure, but there is an important feature of his work which has long been neglected, his interest in science.
Basically, like all the greatest writers on liberty, Paine was a humanitarian. Freedom, in Paine’s view, could not be dissociated from political morality, and he sounded a warning note which still carries a message.
The traditional way of looking at Paine as an Enlightenment political propagandist or as a Newtonian Deist is not explicit enough to distinguish him from others. Nor do these descriptions of Paine enable one to explain why Paine appeals to such a variety of radical, liberal and even conservative causes.
Thus the weight of the evidence that we have at the moment suggests quite strongly, if not conclusively, that the “A Forester” articles of 1772-3, as well as those of 1787-9, were written by the Reverend Richard Michell, and that they were not written by Thomas Paine.
Paine’s fame as a writer on social, political and religious themes plus his controversial activities, has tended to obscure his passionate interest in scientific matters. Paine was perhaps the first person to recognise the critical implications of the growing stream of scientific discoveries.
With the evidence presented, it is not inconceivable that Paine, with remarkable perception and clearheaded purpose, wrote the original draft of the Declaration of Independence. In view of his denunciation of slavery, literary style and similarity of his essay to the deflated clause, the theory of his authorship is plausible.
Was the Declaration of Independence Ghost-Written? Read Post »
