A Short History of Freethought Ancient and Modern, Volume 2 of 2: Third edition, Revised and Expanded, in two volumes

In Short

John Mackinnon Robertson’s second volume of A Short History of Freethought tracks the global development of rationalism, skepticism, and anti-clerical thought from the late Renaissance through the nineteenth century and into the early twentieth. Robertson systematically surveys Europe, Great Britain, Russia, and parts of Asia, documenting how scientific discoveries, philosophical debates, and political shifts gradually eroded traditional religious authority. Rather than viewing freethought as an occasional series of isolated rebellions, he presents it as an evolving historical force shaped by economic changes, state censorship, social conflict, and the continuous exchange of ideas. The narrative follows thinkers who openly challenged or quietly undermined orthodoxy, showing how early philosophical doubts expanded into widespread cultural movements. The work endures as a dense, meticulously documented monument to secular intellectual history, offering a detailed record of the individuals, persecutions, and structural pressures that transformed rationalist inquiry from a dangerous underground impulse into a defining element of modern global culture.

The Story

Robertson begins this volume at the dawn of the modern era, examining how the collapse of medieval intellectual monopolies enabled new forms of critical thought across Western Europe. In Tudor and Elizabethan England, early charges of heresy and atheism emerged among playwriting circles, university wits, and political commentators. Though most writers maintained formal Protestant or Catholic allegiances, the dramatic and literary works of the period—most notably Shakespeare's consistently non-religious handling of human life and mortality—reflected a growing secular consciousness. Across continental Europe, the revival of scientific observation began to collide directly with institutional theology. Copernicus, Giordano Bruno, Galileo, and Descartes introduced physical and philosophical models that challenged the traditional cosmic order, triggering fierce opposition from both Catholic and Protestant authorities. In Spain, however, the intense suppression carried out by the Combined Church and Crown, culminating in the expulsion of the Jews and the Moriscoes, successfully stifled mental variation and induced a long period of intellectual stagnation.

Moving into the seventeenth century, the narrative shifts toward Britain and the Low Countries, where religious factionalism unwittingly fostered rationalist debate. The English Civil War and the surrounding political ferment unleashed a wave of radical sects, popular pamphlets, and early deistic writings. Thinkers like Lord Herbert of Cherbury and Thomas Hobbes laid the foundations for a systematic critique of revelation and ecclesiastical authority. Although Parliament and the Crown attempted to suppress heresy through imprisonment, book-burning, and physical punishment—as seen in the severe trials of Unitarians like John Biddle and Quakers like James Naylor—the proliferation of apologetic literature only highlighted the growing uncertainty of Christian belief. In France and Holland, Cartesian philosophy, the critical skepticism of Bayle, and the materialist implications of Spinoza created a new intellectual climate. The endless internal disputes between Catholics and Protestants, as well as bitter rivalries within the Catholic Church such as the feud between Bossuet and Fénelon, continually served to discredit orthodox claims in the eyes of critical readers.

By the eighteenth century, freethought transformed from a scattered, dangerous minority position into a major cultural and political force. In Britain, deist writers like John Toland, Anthony Collins, and Conyers Middleton subjected sacred texts and miraculous accounts to rigorous literary and historical scrutiny, permanently altering the intellectual temper of the educated classes. In France, despite strict royal censorship and the threat of persecution, the philosophes launched a sustained assault on church and state. Figures like Voltaire, Diderot, Helvétius, and Rousseau disseminated rationalist perspectives through popular literature, secret printing presses, and the monumental Encyclopédie. D'Argenson, Malesherbes, and other sympathetic officials frequently granted tacit permission for prohibited books to circulate. Although these writers held varying views—ranging from Rousseau's emotional deism to Diderot's outright materialism—their combined work undermined the feudal and ecclesiastical order, setting the intellectual stage for the French Revolution. In Germany, the rationalist movement took a more academic form through the illuminism of Wolff, Töllner, and eventually Immanuel Kant, whose critical philosophy reduced religion strictly to the boundaries of human ethics. Simultaneously, Peter the Great and Catherine the Great introduced Western secular ideas into Russia, establishing academies and encouraging translations that gradually nurtured a new secular class.

In the nineteenth century, the violent upheavals of the French Revolution sparked a widespread political and religious reaction across Europe. In England, church and state united to suppress radical political thought and freethought literature, using social ostracism, legal prosecutions, and financial influence to enforce conformity. Prominent public figures and publications strictly policed irreligious expressions, forcing many freethinkers to write with extreme caution or adopt ironical stances. Nevertheless, the advance of natural science, historical criticism, and anthropology proved impossible to contain. The historical-critical analysis of the New Testament developed in Germany by writers like Bruno Bauer and David Friedrich Strauss stripped traditional narratives of their miraculous status, while thinkers like Thomas Carlyle and J. A. Froude popularized non-traditional views of faith in Victorian society. Furthermore, the rise of comparative anthropology through researchers like Edward Tylor demonstrated that religious beliefs and mythologies evolved according to natural, observable laws of human culture rather than divine revelation. By the turn of the twentieth century, rationalism had expanded beyond Europe, influencing political and educational reforms in Japan, Turkey, and across Latin America, cementing freethought as a global historical phenomenon.

How It Unfolds

Tudor and Stuart prosecutions State and ecclesiastical authorities in sixteenth-century England execute and imprison early heretics, while playwrights and pamphleteers begin integrating secular and pagan themes into popular literature.

The scientific collision Astronomers and natural philosophers like Copernicus, Galileo, and Bruno propose mechanical and heliocentric models of the universe, drawing severe condemnation and legal suppression from the Inquisition.

Seventeenth-century sectarian turmoil Civil strife in Britain fuels a explosion of radical religious factions, prompting Parliament to pass harsh laws against blasphemy while thinkers like Hobbes and Herbert of Cherbury formulate early rationalist theories.

The French and Dutch underground Cartesian logic and Spinozist philosophy spread through intellectual networks in France and the Netherlands, while bitter internal theological disputes between Bossuet, Fénelon, and the Jansenists weaken church authority.

The deistic assault Eighteenth-century English deists subject Biblical history and miraculous claims to direct critical examination, prompting an avalanche of defensive apologetic literature from Anglican theologians.

The rise of the philosophes French writers collaborate on the Encyclopédie and publish clandestine treatises, using satire, literary criticism, and underground printing networks to dismantle the moral authority of the Church.

German illuminism and Kantian ethics University scholars and theologians in Germany systematically reduce revelation to natural reason, culminating in Immanuel Kant's philosophy that locates true religion exclusively within moral duty.

Imperial Russia's secular import Czars Peter the Great and Catherine II restrict monastic influence and establish secular academies, allowing Western European freethought and belles-lettres to enter Russian intellectual life.

Post-revolutionary reaction Terrified by the French Revolution, British and European authorities join with orthodox churches to suppress democratic political organizations and penalize openly irreligious publications.

Nineteenth-century Biblical criticism German historians like Bruno Bauer subject the Gospels to rigorous literary analysis, arguing that scriptural narratives represent deliberate literary constructions rather than historical facts.

Anthropological demystification Researchers mass global cultural data to show that religious myths and concepts of the soul develop through natural evolutionary steps, placing religion firmly within the domain of natural history.

Global expansion of rationalism Modern educational and political reforms bring secularist perspectives into non-Western nations, including Japan, Turkey, and Latin American republics, establishing rationalism as an international movement.

The People

• Giordano Bruno — A bold, speculative philosopher who wanders across Europe championing a Copernican, infinite universe, ultimately brought before the Inquisition for his radical departures from orthodox cosmology.
• Galileo Galilei — A brilliant Italian mathematician and astronomer who uses physical observation to defend the motion of the earth, forcing ecclesiastical courts to rely on literal scriptural interpretations to condemn his findings.
• Thomas Hobbes — An uncompromising English political philosopher who applies mechanical principles to human nature and statecraft, sparking decades of intense theological counter-attacks.
• John Toland — A fiery, audacious Irish-born writer who uses John Locke's empiricism to argue that Christianity contains nothing above reason, enduring social ostracism, legal presentations, and financial hardship for his controversial publications.
• Conyers Middleton — A sharp, unsparing Anglican clergyman and scholar who applies destructive historical criticism to church miracles and Gospel inconsistencies, destabilizing orthodoxy from within the establishment.
• Denis Diderot — The tireless, brilliant editor of the Encyclopédie who orchestrates a massive subterranean intellectual movement in France, writing materialist works while constantly evading royal censors.
• Jean-Jacques Rousseau — A deeply emotional, eccentric philosopher whose passionate deism and praise of natural religion stimulate both radical political critique and fierce attacks from orthodox clergy and fellow philosophes alike.
• Immanuel Kant — An austere German philosopher whose critical examination of human reason strips traditional theology of its theoretical proofs, re-founding religion strictly on the demands of moral duty.
• Bruno Bauer — A radical German theologian and freelance critic who breaks entirely with academic orthodoxy by treating the Gospels as deliberate literary inventions rather than historical records.
• Sir Edward Tylor — A groundbreaking English anthropologist who compiles global cultural data to prove that religious concepts and mythologies evolve according to natural historical laws.

In Its Own Voice

"Shakespeare, and Shakespeare alone, after Marlowe, is persistently non-religious in his handling of life."

This observation highlights how English drama began to process human experience independently of traditional Christian theology.

"The Moriscoes may have counted for little in positive culture; but they were one of the last and most important factors of variation in the country; and when Spain was thus successively denuded of precisely the most original and energetic types among the Jewish, the Spanish, and the Moorish stocks, her mental arrest was complete."

Robertson emphasizes how religious persecution and forced expulsions directly caused the intellectual and material decline of Spain.

"To point out to either party, as did Michelet, that evangelical Christianity is a religion of submission and preparation for the end of all things, and has nothing to do with rational political reform, is to bestow logic where logic is indomiciliable."

This passage illustrates the inherent friction between orthodox religious doctrines and the rationalist principles driving modern political reform.

What It's Really About

At its core, the book argues that intellectual progress is driven by the continuous presence of critical variation and doubt. Robertson contends that dogmatic religious systems naturally seek to enforce uniformity, stifle innovation, and preserve existing social power structures. Intellectual advance occurs when individuals and groups resist this pressure, utilizing reason, empirical observation, and historical criticism to question established orthodoxies. The narrative demonstrates that freethought is not a mere byproduct of a few genius thinkers, but a systemic historical process intimately linked to social, political, and economic conditions. War, political factionalism, and harsh state repression repeatedly halt or reverse rationalist gains, whereas peace, active trade, free printing, and inter-cultural communication allow inquiry to flourish.

Furthermore, the work explores how theological controversy often undermines itself. The endless, bitter disputes between competing sects—such as Protestants and Catholics, or Jansenists and Molinists—compel each side to use rational arguments against its opponents, unintentionally training the public to apply those same critical tools to religion as a whole. Robertson repeatedly illustrates that defending faith through skeptical or irrational arguments eventually drives critical readers toward complete unbelief. Ultimately, the book presents human history as an ongoing struggle between the instinct to enforce intellectual conformity and the drive toward free, naturalist inquiry.

Why Read It Today

This volume offers an exceptionally detailed, unvarnished history of secular thought that bypasses modern summaries in favor of vast historical specifics. Readers who enjoy sweeping intellectual histories, the history of science, or the structural analysis of political ideas will find Robertson's approach deeply satisfying. He writes with a firm, confident style that values exact historical evidence over vague generalizations. Rather than presenting rationalism as an easy, inevitable victory, he carefully details the immense social pressure, state violence, and professional ruin faced by those who questioned dominant creeds.

The experience of reading the book requires patience, as Robertson assumes a high degree of historical literacy. His prose is dense with named contemporaries, forgotten pamphlet wars, Latin citations, and detailed references to European institutional history. The length of the text and its focus on minor theological controversies can occasionally feel exhausting to a casual reader. Furthermore, the early twentieth-century prose reflects a scholarly period that favored long, complex sentences and dense footnotes.

Nevertheless, what stays with the reader is the vast global scale of the narrative and the realization that modern secular freedoms were hard-won through centuries of quiet persistence, underground publishing, and sharp intellectual debate. Robertson’s work serves as a sobering reminder of how easily intellectual environments can stagnate under enforced conformity, and how vital critical variation remains to the health of any culture.