Note 11 — Chapter XVI · BRITISH FREETHOUGHT IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

As regards his more original views on Christian origins, he is not impressive to the modern reader; but theses which to-day stand for little were in their own day important. Thus in his Hodegus (pt. i of the Tetradymus, 1720) it is elaborately argued that the “pillar of fire by night and of cloud by day” was no miracle, but the regular procedure of guides in deserts, where night marches are the rule; the “cloud” being simply the smoke of the vanguard’s fire, which by night flared red. Later criticism decides that the whole narrative of the Exodus is myth. Toland’s method, however, was relatively so advanced that it had not been abandoned by theological “rationalists” a century later. Of that movement he must be ranked an energetic pioneer: though he lacked somewhat the strength of character that in his day was peculiarly needed to sustain a freethinker. Much of his later life was spent abroad; and his Letters to Serena (1704) show him permitted to discourse to the Queen of Prussia on such topics as the origin and force of prejudice, the history of the doctrine of immortality, and the origin of idolatry. He pays his correspondent the compliment of treating his topics with much learning; and his manner of assuming her own orthodoxy in regard to revelation could have served as a model to Gibbon.11 But, despite such distinguished patronage, his life was largely passed in poverty, cheerfully endured,12 with only chronic help from well-to-do sympathizers, such as Shaftesbury, who was not over-sympathetic. When it is noted that down to 1761 there had appeared no fewer than fifty-four answers to his first book,13 his importance as an intellectual influence may be realized.