Note 15 — Chapter XX · EARLY FREETHOUGHT IN THE UNITED STATES
Reading edition
A letter of Franklin to someone who had shown him a freethinking manuscript, advising against its publication (Bettany’s ed. p. 620), has been conjecturally connected with Paine, but was clearly not addressed to him. Franklin died in 1790, and Paine was out of America from 1787 onwards. But the letter is in every way inapplicable to the Age of Reason. The remark: “If men are so wicked with religion, what would they be without it?” could not be made to a devout deist like Paine. ↑