Note 242 — Chapter XVI · BRITISH FREETHOUGHT IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

As regards England, Paine is the great popular factor; and it is the bare truth to say that he brought into the old debate a new earnestness and a new moral impetus. The first part of the Age of Reason, hastily put together in expectation of speedy death in 1793, and including some astronomic matter that apparently antedates 1781,242 is a swift outline of the position of the rationalizing deist, newly conscious of firm standing-ground in astronomic science. That is the special note of Paine’s gospel. He was no scholar; and the champions of the “religion of Galilee” have always been prompt to disparage any unlearned person who meddles with religion as an antagonist; but in the second part of his book Paine put hard criticism enough to keep a world of popular readers interested for well over a hundred years. The many replies are forgotten: the Biblical criticism of Paine will continue to do its work till popular orthodoxy follows the lead of professional scholarship and gives up at once the acceptance and the circulation of things incredible and indefensible as sacrosanct.