Note 71 — Chapter XXI · FREETHOUGHT IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

Thus, under the sounder moral and economic conditions of the life of the proletariate in Germany, straightforward rationalism, as apart from propaganda, is becoming among them more and more the rule. The bureaucratic control of education forces religious teaching in the common schools; and there is no “conscience clause” for unbelieving parents.71 A Protestant pastor at the end of the century made an investigation into the state of religious opinion among the working Socialists of some provincial towns and rural districts, and found everywhere a determined attitude of rationalism. The formula of the Social Democrats, “Religion is a private matter,” he bitterly perceives to carry the implication “a private matter for the fools”; and while he holds that the belief in a speedy collapse of the Christian religion is latterly less common than formerly among the upper and middle classes, he complains that the Socialists are not similarly enlightened.72 Bebel’s drastic teaching as to the economic and social conditions of the rise of Christianity,73 and the materialistic theory of history set forth by Marx and Engels, he finds generally accepted. Not only do most of the party leaders declare themselves to be without religion, but those who do not so declare themselves are so no less.74 Nor is the unbelief a mere sequel to the Socialism: often the development is the other way.75 The opinion is almost universal, further, that the clergy in general do not believe what they teach.76 Atheists are numerous among the peasantry; more numerous among the workers in the provincial towns; and still more numerous in the large towns;77 and while many take a sympathetic view of Jesus as a man and teacher, not a few deny his historic existence78—a view set forth in non-Socialist circles also.79