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John Bagnell Bury . A History of Freedom of Thought
A History of Freedom of Thought
Table of Contents
Introductory
A HISTORY OF FREEDOM OF THOUGHT
CHAPTER II REASON FREE (GREECE AND ROME)
CHAPTER III REASON IN PRISON (THE MIDDLE AGES)
CHAPTER IV PROSPECT OF DELIVERANCE (THE RENAISSANCE AND THE REFORMATION)
CHAPTER V RELIGIOUS TOLERATION
CHAPTER VI THE GROWTH OF RATIONALISM (SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES)
CHAPTER VII THE PROGRESS OF RATIONALISM (NINETEENTH CENTURY)
CHAPTER VIII THE JUSTIFICATION OF LIBERTY OF THOUGHT
BIBLIOGRAPHY
INDEX
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John Bagnell Bury
Published by Good Press, 2020
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The distinction may seem so obvious as to be hardly worth making. But it is important to be quite clear about it. The primitive man who had learned from his elders that there were bears in the hills and likewise evil spirits, soon verified the former statement by seeing a bear, but if he did not happen to meet an evil spirit, it did not occur to him, unless he was a prodigy, that there was a distinction between the two statements; he would rather have argued, if he argued at all, that as his tribesmen were right about the bears they were sure to be right also about the spirits. In the Middle Ages a man who believed on authority that there is a city called Constantinople and that comets are portents signifying divine wrath, would not distinguish the nature of the evidence in the two cases. You may still sometimes hear arguments amounting to this: since I believe in Calcutta on authority, am I not entitled to believe in the Devil on authority?
Now people at all times have been commanded or expected or invited to accept on authority alone—the authority, for instance, of public opinion, or a Church, or a sacred book—doctrines which are not proved or are not capable of proof. Most beliefs about nature and man, which were not founded on scientific observation, have served directly or indirectly religious and social interests, and hence they have been protected by force against the criticisms of persons who have the inconvenient habit of using their reason. Nobody minds if his neighbour disbelieves a demonstrable fact. If a sceptic denies that Napoleon existed, or that water is composed of oxygen and hydrogen, he causes amusement or ridicule. But if he denies doctrines which cannot be demonstrated, such as the existence of a personal God or the immortality of the soul, he incurs serious disapprobation and at one time he might have been put to death. Our mediæval friend would have only been called a fool if he doubted the existence of Constantinople, but if he had questioned the significance of comets he might have got into trouble. It is possible that if he had been so mad as to deny the existence of Jerusalem he would not have escaped with ridicule, for Jerusalem is mentioned in the Bible.
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