Note 11 — Chapter III · WHAT IS FREETHOUGHT?

It is a curious thing, as Philip Gilbert Hamerton points out in one of his essays, that in England religious freedom appears to exist in inverse proportion to rank. The king has no freedom whatever in a choice of religion. His religion is part of the position. An English nobleman, speaking generally, has two religions from which to choose. He may be either a member of the established Church or of the Roman Catholic. In the middle classes there is the choice of all sorts of religious sects, so long as they are Christian. Religious dissent is permitted so long as it does not travel beyond the limits of the chapel. And when we come to the better class working man, he has the greatest freedom of all. His social position does not depend upon his belonging to this or that Church, and he may, to borrow a phrase from Heine, go to hell in his own fashion.