Note 8 — Chapter XXI · FREETHOUGHT IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

Thus the traveller and belletrist J. G. Seume, a zealous deist and opponent of atheism, and a no less zealous patriot, penned many fiercely freethinking maxims, as: “Where were the most so-called positive religions, there was always the least morality”; “Grotius and the Bible are the best supports of despotism”; “Heaven has lost us the earth”; “The best apostles of despotism and slavery are the mystics.” Apokryphen, 1806–1807, in Sämmtliche Werke, 1839, iv, 157, 173, 177, 219. ↑