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Infidels - Ditcionary of Freethinkers Category: People and society > Freethinkers Date & country: 13/09/2007, USA Words: 470

Chaucer, Geoffrey
(1328-1400) the greatest English poet. The tone of the comments on priests, monks and nuns in his Canterbury Tales was not uncommon in his time but professor Lownsbury (Studies in Chaucer, 3 Vols. 1892) has made a severe analysis and shown that the poet was an advanced freethinker. Commenting on lines 2809-15 of 'the Knight's Tale' he asks: 'Can modern agnosticism point to a denial more emphatic than that made in the fourteenth century of the belief that there exists for us any assurance of the …

Child, Lydia Francis
(1802-1880) an important figure in both the abolitionist and the feminist movements in America. She was a successful novelist when she fell under the influence of Garrison and began to work against slavery. She published the first anti-slavery book in America and edited The National Anti-Slavery Standard: and she was later just as active in the feminist movement. Mrs. Child wrote several works on religion. She was a non-Christian theist.

Claretie, Jules Arsene Arnaud
(1840-1910) French Writer. One of the most brilliant of the great company of French Writers in the second half of the last century and member of the Academy. On one occasion the Minister of Public Instruction refused him permission to lecture and he issued a vigorous defense of freethought and speech (La libre parole).

Clemenceau, George Eugene Benjamin
(1841-1929), famous French statesman. His atheism and hostility to the Church were as well known as his political radicalism. He freely expresses his sentiments La melee sociale and Le Grand Pan, and he was an Honorary Associate of the Rationalist Press Association until he died.

Clemens, Samuel Langhorne
(1835-1910) 'Mark Twain' His Atheism is freely expressed in a number of works (Eve's diary. 1906, What is Man?, 1909, The Mysterious Stranger, 1918, etc.) but is seen in its most virulent form in his letters. In a letter of August 28, 1908 he replies to a young man who has asked if he would include Jesus among the 100 greatest men of history. Yes, he says, if you mean men with influence in history, but Satan also. 'These two gentlemen,' he says, 'have had more influence than all others put toget…

Clough, Arthur Hugh
(1819-1861) British poet. Though now little read Clough's verse was very highly esteemed in his day. Carlyle, who knew him, says that he was 'the most high-principled man I have ever known.' Dr. Jowett, the liberal churchman, who also knew him says that he had 'a kind of faith in knowing nothing' (Letters, p. 177). He wavered a little, as poets do, but in his final declaration on religion he is practically agnostic with a thin lingering shade of theism or pantheism.

Collier The Honorable John
(1850-1934) British painter. A son of Lord Monkswell who married a daughter of Professor Huxley and when she died, defiantly married her sister and did much to get the law, which forbade marrying a deceased wife's sister, reformed. He was an Agnostic (as he states in an article in the Rationalist Annual, 1934) and contemptuous of all theology. A friend of Alma-Tedema and other leading Artists, he assures me, when I often discussed the question of art and religion with him, that few artists have …

Collins, Anthony
(1676-1729) British Deist. Collins, who figures prominently in the history of Deism, was a rich country gentleman of high character, a friend of John Locke, the philosopher, who published a number of anti-christian books (Discourse of Freethinking, etc.)

Collins, Professor John Churton
(1848-1908) British writer. He won a very high position as literary critic and published admirable studies of Voltaire and Bolingbroke. He had refused to take up a clerical career and had become a skeptic in early years and for this he had been disinherited, In a Memoir by his son prefixed to The Life and Memoiurs of J.C. Collins

Conrad, Joseph
(1857-1924), novelist. A Polish seaman, his real name Theodore Jozef Konrad Korzeniowski, who so mastered English they he rose to the front rank of British novelists in the last century. In Some Reminiscences

Conway, Moncure Daniel, D.D.
(1832-1907), author. Originally an American Methodist Minister, then Unitarian, he got into trouble for his abolitionist zeal and settled in London, where he shed all; beliefs and presided over an Ethical Society. He had considerable influence in public life and his scholarly works won for him a high position in cultured society.

Courtney, Baron Leonard Henry
(1832-1918), British statesman. A lawyer, then professor of political economy, who entered politics and rose to front rank positions. He published a Diary of a Church Goer in which he confesses that he was no religious beliefs beyond a liberal theism and that a large number of distinguished churchgoers like himself do not believe in Christianity.

Cousin, Victor
(1792-1867), French philosopher. One if the leading French thinkers of the early 19th century, member of the Academy and Minister of Public Instruction, and translator and editor of the works of Plato, Proclus, Descartes, and Abelard

Cremer, Sir William Randal
(1838-1908) reformer, Nobel Prize Winner. A British working man who entered politics and worked so zealously for peace and other humanitarian ideals that he won an international reputation and many high honors. His biographer Howard Evand says that he rejected Christianity but remained 'religious.'

Croce, Professor Benedetto
(1866- ) The most eminent philosopher of Italy in the present century with a considerable international reputation. He is almost equally distinguished in history and has a very sound influence on public affairs. His philosophy is Neo-Hegelian, but, as his chief English follower, Professor Wilson Carr says, 'the religious activity has no place in it. To him religion is mythology.'

Cross, Mary Ann.
See George Eliot.

Curie, Manya or Marie
(1867-1934) codiscoverer of radium. Daughter of a Polish freethinker but reared by a Catholic mother. She abandoned the Church before she was 20 and her marriage with Pierre Curie was a purely civil ceremony because she says in her memoir of him, 'Pierre belonged to no religion and I did not practice any' (p. 52). They isolated radium-after Becquerel had pointed out the radiant properties of uranium-in equal cooperation and received the Nobel Prize jointly. After his death she sustained their wo…

Curie, Professor Pierre
(1859-1906) co discoverer of radium. The feminist agitation that occurred after his death led to such glorification of his wife that the fact that he had an equal share in the research was generally pushed out of sight. He was professor at Paris University and, as explained above, an atheist.

Danton, Georges Jacques
(1759-1794) French revolutionary leader. He was a lawyer of middle-class family before he devoted himself to revolutionary politics. The excesses of the Terror disgusted him and Robespierre had him arrested and executed. Even the Catholic Belloc has to acknowledge the greatness of his character (Danton 1899) but with amazing audacity denies that he was an atheist. It was one of Robespiere's charges against him.

Darrow, Clarence
(1857-1938) attorney. A son of the people-which he never forgot-he became the greatest criminal lawyer in America, and he often defended labor organizations or individuals with little or no money. In explanation of his taking such a case as the Loeb-Leopold he explained to me that he never sought to enable such criminals to escape punishment but only the death sentence, to which he morally objected. He was an outspoken agnostic and fine humanitarian.

Darusmont, Francis
(1795-1852) feminist. Daughter of a Scottish freethinker, she adopted his views and wrote a defense of the Epicurean philosophy in her teens. She emigrated to America, married Darusmont, and won a high reputation as a lecturer on freethought, feminism, and other reforms. 'Few have made greater sacrifices for conviction's sake or exhibited a more courageous independence' (Dict. of Nat. Biog. )

Darwin, Charles Robert
(1809-1882), discoverer of Natural Selection. After 14 years spent in collecting material he published the famous Origin of Species in 1858 and the Descent of Man in 1871. He was still a theist when he wrote the Origin , and clerical writers sometimes dishonestly quote his references to the creator to prove his views. His son, Sir. F. Darwin, who wrote the Life and Letters

Darwin, Erasmus, M.A., M.B.
(1731-1802) Grandfather of Charles, a physician, and one of the pioneers of evolution. He wrote in verse, though his theory was naturally crude in view of the poverty of science at the time. He was a Deist.

Daudet, Alphonso
(1840-1897) French novelist. For many years his name was coupled with that of Zola as the leading novelists of the last century.. He was less outspoken about religion, but hardly less hated by the clergy. He was an atheist.

David, Jacques Louis
(1748-1825) the leading French painter of his time. He ardently joined in the Revolution and organized the great national festivals when religion was practically abolished. He was later Napoleon's chief artist but the clerical-royalists banished him and would not even allow his family to bring his body back to France for burial.

De Gubernatis, Count Angelo
(1840-1913), Italian orientalist. He was professor of Sanscrit, a voluminous writer, and a member of more learned societies (including the American Philosophical Society)and recipient of more honors than any other Italian scholar. In the preface of his Dictionnaire Internatianal

Debussy, Claude Achille
(1862-1918), French composer. He entered the Paris Conservatoire at the age of 11 and by 1902 his L'apres-midid'un faune and other compositions were known throughout the world and he was acclaimed as 'one of the greatest musiciand of his generation.'

Delacroix, Ferdinand Victor Eugene
(1798-1863), French painter. He threw himself into the Revolution of 1830, as his great predecessor David had taken up the First Revolution, and painted a famous picture of 'Liberty leading the people to the Barricades.' Many considered him the greatest painter of the first half of the century. Delacroix was an enthusiastic admirer of Diderot and shared his atheism. His funeral was purely secular.

Delambre, Jean Baptiste Joseph
(1749-1822), famous French astronomer. He made many important advances in his science and received the highest honors. He was a friend and pupil of Lelande (See) as is included in the Dictionary of Atheists which Lelande helped to compile.

DesMoulins, Benoit Camille
(1760-1794), French revolutionary. A young Partisan lawyer of good family who played an important part in the early stage of the Revolution. Arrested for his moderation during the Terror, when the court asked his age he said: 'Thirty-three-same as the sans-culotte Jesus.' Atheist.

Diaz, Porfirio
(1830-1915), President of the Republic of Mexico. Educated for the priesthood he quit the Church, took to law and politics, and became the most famous leader of the anti-clericals. 'Don Porfirio' had his faults but he made Mexico safe for freethinkers and did a good deal for the Country.

Diderot, Dennis
(1713-1784) French philosopher of the 18th century. Son of a working man, he made his way in poverty and great sobriety of life to the front rank of French scholarship. His early books were burned for impiety and he was put in jail but a group of brilliant writers, the so-called 'philosophers,' rallied to him and during 30 years he brought out the famous Encyclopedia

Dio Chrysostom
(50-117), famous Roman orator. Dio of the Golden Mouth, as the name given to him means, had such fame as an orator that the Emperor Trajan made a close friend of him. We still have a large number of his orations and there is a translation

Dolet, Etienne
(1509-1546), French martyr. A printer of critical books of religion who, after repeated imprisonments, was burned alive for his heresies. He was more Protestant than atheist (as he is sometimes called), but in the true sense a martyr for free thought and free speech.

Douglas, Stephen Arnold
(1813-1861), statesman. A lawyer, Secretary of State for Illinois and Judge of the Supreme Court, and an unsuccessful candidate for the presidency. His eloquence was renowned throughout America and more than once he used it in the Cause of religious freedom. Douglas 'never identified himself with any Church,' the Philadelphia Press said in its obituary notice; and see A. Johnson's S.A. Douglass

Dreiser, Theodore
(1871- ), novelist. His hostility to religion runs through all the grim, realistic novels that have made him famous. In one of them he says: 'Assure a man that he has a soul and then frighten him with old wives tales as to what is to become of him afterwards, and you have hooked a fish, a mental slave.'

Dumas, Alexandre, the Younger
(1824-1895) French Novelist and dramatist. The elder and more famous Dumas died a Catholic. The younger, his bastard, became a Deist with severe ideals, as P. Bourget describes in his Nouveaux Essais (pp. 64-78). He earned a reputation by his novels and dramas which only suffers a little by the inevitable comparison with those of his father.

Dupont De Nemours, Pierre Samuel
(1739-1817), one of the most eminent French economists of the 18th century. He founded the Physiocratic School of economics and held high offices of state. He accepted the Revolution but was shocked by the Terror, as he was a man of high humanitarian ideals. In his Philosophie de l' univers

Dupuis, Professor Charles Francois
(1742-1809), originator of the solar myth theory of religion. He was for some time a priest but abandoned the church and took up astronomy, of which he made a thorough study under Lalande. In 1781 he began to trace all religious myths to astronomical truths, and in 1794 he published the large work Origines de tous le cultes

Edwards, John Passmore
(1823-1911), British philanthropist. A poor boy who educated himself and made a large fortune by journalism. His papers set a standard of truth and idealism that is hardly known any longer, and his money was lavishly distributed amongst educational and philanthropic institutions

Einstein, Professor Albert
(1879- ) The celebrated mathematician, a German Jew by origin, had discarded sectarian beliefs before he was driven from Germany. In a radio from Berlin on his beliefs he spoke only of some 'sense of the mysterious' which is at the root of religion and beauty. The American Catholic hierarchy denounced him as an atheist when he was invited to America, but his anxious friends could get him to profess only a belief in 'a Great Power.' He classes as an Agnostic but like many great scientists he has …

Eliot, George (Mary Ann Cross,
(1819-1880), most famous woman writer of the last century. She was brilliant from girlhood and mastered Greek, Latin, Italian, and German. She translated Strauss's very Rationalistic Life of Jesus in 1844, and it was not until 10 years later when she went to live with Lewes, that she began to write novels. When Lewes died

Elizabeth Cady Stanton
(1815-1902) reformer and writer. Daughter of Judge Cady and married to the abolitionist Stanton. She was a very accomplished young woman-she knew Latin and Greek-and threw herself with great zeal into the feminist movement and became the leader. Like most of the leaders she was a skeptic, an agnostic. 'The Bible and the Church have been the greatest stumbling blocks in the way of woman's emancipation.' In her autobiography she complains that 'the religious superstition of women perpetuate their …

Ellis, Henry Havelock
(1859-1939), sexologist. It is hardly necessary to show that the famous psychologist of sex was a freethinker. The clergy loathed him and I had private knowledge of attempts to trap and prosecute him. His agnostic views are explained in Affirmations

Emerson, Ralph Waldo
(1803-1882), moralist. The fact that Emerson, who was at first a Unitarian minister, severed his connection with that Church definitely puts him in the class of freethinkers. He believes in an Over-Soul or World-Soul (as others put it) and might be described as Pantheist. He did not like the label Transcendentalist or any other label and did not care to pin himself to any definite religious formulae. Although his dogmatic institutionalist ethic is not suitable for our time and it lead to a good …

Emmet, Robert
(1778-1803), Irish patriot. There was much more freethinking in Ireland and much more freedom to think 150 years ago than there is today, and the priests carefully concealed the opinions of patriots like Emmet, O'Brien, O'Connor, etc., whom they hold up to youth today. Emmet went to France and there imbibed republicanism and deism, and on his return he organized a revolution. Maxwell records in his History of the Irish Rebellion that when he was about to be executed he refused to see a priest an…

Engels, Fredrich
(1820-1895), German Socialist leader. Experience in his father's business in the north of England, where the life of the worker was still squalid, prepared Engles for radical views and he joined Marx in founding Socialism in Europe. Like Marx he later found refuge from persecution in England. Belfort Bax, a British atheist socialist, who knew him, calls him a 'devout atheist' (Reminiscences p. 51).

Ensor, George, B.A.
(1769-1843), Irish Deist. Another of the many cultivated Irish freethinkers of that time. Ensor took little part in politics but published, amongst other works, a drastic criticism of the bible.

Erasmus, Desiderius
(1466-1536), the leading scholar and greatest freethinker of his time. Probably the bastard of a Dutch priest and his niece, he became a priest and monk and so richly developed his gift for satire . His wit and learning won him the highest recognition all over Europe, and for a time he taught Greek at Oxford University. Erasmus was 'not the stuff that martyrs are made of' - he tells us frankly that he had 'o inclination to die for the truth'- so we do not know the full extent of his skepticism, …

Ericsson, John
(1803-1889) Inventor. A Swede who invented the screw propeller and took his invention to America where he followed it up with many other valuable inventions. Ingersoll knew him well and calls him 'one of the profoundest Agnostics I ever met' (Works, V. 11 p. 319). New York State raised a statue to him and the government sent his remains back to Sweden in a cruiser.

Erigena, John Scotus
(615-677), Irish philosopher. The Irish were then known as 'Scots' in Europe and 'Erigena' meand born in Erin. He was the most brilliant of the Irish scholars who, in the short period when some culture still survived in Ireland-the Anglo-Saxon invasions had ruined it in England-migrated to France. He was several times condemned by the Church, and the work of his that survives (De Divisione Naturae ) is vaguely Pantheistic. He at least held against the boorish bishops that 'reason preceded faith.…

Espronceda, Jose De
(1810-1842), Spanish poet. He was put in jail for writing rebellious poetry at the age of 14 and spent most of his life in exile. At Paris he fought in the 1830 rebellion and was back in Spain for the 1840 rebellion. He then became on of the most popular poets in Spain, freely expressing his deistic opinions in some of his poems. (Cancion de pirata , etc.)

Fabre, Jean Henri
(1823-1915), French entomologist. Son of a priest, his books (I would say greatly influenced by his fathers occupation as a priest) on insect life, though in some respects corrected by later scientific work, had a high international reputation. Religious writers quote him as one of their 'great Catholic scientists' but his biographer, D.G. Legros, expressly says that he was 'free from all superstition and quite indifferent to dogmas and miracles' ..La vie de G. H. Fabre, p. 192. He was theistic,…

Faure, Framcios Felix
(1841-1899), sixth President of the French Republic. Son of a worker who made a fortune in business and rose to high positions in politics as an anti-clerical Liberal. He was President 1895 to 1899 and responsible for the drastic laws against the Church that were passed in those years.

Fawcett, Edgar
(1847-1904), poet. A warm admirer of Ingersoll he called himself an Agnostic Christian, mixing skepticism on fundamentals with an ill-formed moral admiration of Christianity in his Songs of Doubt and Dreams, Agnosticism and Other Essays, etc.

Fels, Joseph
(1854-1914), philanthropist. Beginning life as a poor boy he made a fortune in the soap business and used his money and energy freely to promote reform and in philanthropy. He was a non-Christian theist (Joseph Fels , by Mary Fels, 1920, pp. 177-184).

Fermi. Professor Enrico
(1856-1929), Italian criminologist and Socialist leader. He taught penal law at seven different universities from 1879 to 1896 and is classed with Lombrosco. He was leader of the Italian Socialists and editor of Avanti. During the latter term I once wrote to ask him if I should be right in saying that all Italian Socialists had given up the Catholic faith. 'Yes,' he replied, warmly 'and they reject every religion under the sun.'

Ferrer Y Guardia, Francisco
(1859-1909), Spanish educationalist. Self educated son of a poor man who devoted himself to the reform of education, chiefly by ridding it of superstition, founded 50 Modern Schools in Spain, and incurred the mortal hatred of the clergy. As he was also a philosophic Anarchist of the gentle Tolstoi school, the government willingly obliged the bishops and, after a gross travesty of a trial, had him shot. He was a man of high character and ideals (see my Martyrdom of Ferrer, 1909).

Ferrero, Gugielmo
(1872- ), eminent Italian sociologist. He is also a notable criminologist and one of the leading European writers on ancient Rome. In 1908 he was Lowell lecturer in America and several of his books were translated. Ferrero is a Positivist. Being invited in America to contribute to a symposium on the future life he wrote that he did not believe in it.

Ferry, Jules Francios Camille
(1832-1893) French statesman. From law and journalism he passed on to politics and became one of the leaders of the anti-clericals. He was Minister of Public Instruction (and responsible for secularizing the schools), Premier and President of the Senate. Ferry was a thorough Agnostic (see his Discours et Opinions, 2 vols, 1903).

Feuerbach, Ludwig Andreas
(1804-1872), German philosopher. Lost his chair of philosophy for publishing a book in which he denied a future life. A brilliant and caustic writer he had an immense influence in Germany about the middle of the century. It was his work that converted Karl Marx from Hegelianism to Atheism and materialism. His brother Friedrich, an orientalist, was just as thorough a freethinker.

Fichte, Professor Johan Gottlieb
(1762-1814), German philosopher. Known to a few today but as well known as Kant at the beginning of the last century. He was dismissed form his chair on the charge of atheism but his system was rather an idealist Pantheism. He was also the leader of the youth of Germany in the struggle against Napoleon.

Fiske, Professor John
(1842-1901), philosopher. Professor of philosophy at Harvard and later of American history at Washington. Religious writers quote him as an orthodox Christian. J.S. Clark shows in his Life and Letters of J. Fiske

Fitzgerald, Edward
(1809-1883), poet and translator of Omar Khayyam. Few would know anything of Omar if it were not for the British poet or of Fitzgerald but for his translation of the Persian. It is so free a translation that wee may call it a fine poem of his own, but he never falsifies the sentiments though in places he expresses his agnosticism a little more boldly than a Persian poet would have dared. There are studies of him by T. Wright and F.G. Groome.

Flaubert. Gustave
(1821-1880), famous French novelist. Trained in medicine but turned to fiction and he worked with such artistic conscientiousness that he produced only five novels. One is The Temptation of St. Anthony, which sufficiently shows what he thought of the church.

Foote, George William
(1850-1915) Bradlaugh's successor as head of the British Secularists (atheists). He was a fine writer and speaker but little known outside his circle. At one time he was in prison for a year for blasphemy.

Fourier, Baron Jean Bapiste Joseph
(1768-1830), eminent French mathematician and physicist. He took an active part in the Revolution and rose to great importance under Napoleon. For discovering the nature of heat and for other scientific triumphs the clergy, who hated and persecuted him under the restored royalty, could not prevent his admission to the Academy, the British Royal Society, and other learned bodies.

Fox, Elizabeth Vassale, Lady Holand
(1770-1845), wife of the third baron Holland. a social light which illuminates and adorned England, and even Europe for half a century. (Greville in Memoirs , V, 313). He ads that she was an atheist like her famous uncle and was 'known to be wholly destitute of religious opinions.'

France, Jacques Anatole
(1844-1942), greatest writer of modern France. His skepticism pervades all his brilliant novels but is definitely put in his L'eglise et la republique

Franklin, Benjamin, LL.D., F.R.S.,
(1706-1790). Franklin's distinction in science, for which he got the Copely Medal and membership of the English Royal Society, and political career are well known. The attempt of some religious writers to claim so distinguished an American for orthodoxy is quite andurd in the face of his Autobiography. He states plainly that he quit the Presbyterian Church and was for the rest of his life a Deist believing in a future life (pp. 185-188). 'I have found Christian dogma unintelligible. Early in lif…

Frederic II
(1194-1251), German emperor, 'the Wonder of the World' (so called by the contemporary Christian writer Matthew of Paris). He had a German father and Norman mother and inherited the kingdoms of both. But Arab culture still flourished in Sicily , which the Normand had taken, and Frederic eagerly andorbed it; especially after the 'greatest' of the Popes. Innocent III, tried to cheat him out of his inheritance after a solemn promise to his mother to guard it. He became the most learned, brilliant, a…

Frederic the Great
(1712-1786), King of Prussia. Not really so 'great' as the King of Sicily, yet certainly superior to the Christian monarchs (Charlemagne, Constantine, and Justinean) to whom the title is usually given and incomparably superior to his pious, boorish and cruel father. The circumstances of the time compelled him to wage much war and indulge in tortuous diplomacy, but he was a most wise and humane ruler of his people. He inaugurated the advance of Germany to the position of a great power. That he wa…

Froebel, Friedrich
(1782-1852), famous German educationalist. Son of a poor Lutheran pastor who won a name in the history of education only second to that of Pestalozzi (also a freethinker). As the clergy bitterly opposed his work and the Prussian government obliged them by closing his schools-on the grounds that he would not have Christian lessons in them-he was not very outspoken but even Pastor Schmeidler, who writes on his religious opinions, allows that he was not a Christian but a vague Pantheist.

Gage, Matilda Joslyn
(1826-1898), writer. One of the many able American women who, in spite of general public hostility, took an active part in the abolishment and feminist movements of the last century. Mrs. Gage was President of the National Women's Suffrage Association, edited their paper, and collaborated with Miss Anthony in writing the history of the movement. Her freethought is emphatically given in her Women, Church, and State

Galdos, Benito Perez
(1845-1920) greatest Spanish writer of the last century. He wrote 70 novels and a score of plays. A large number of his novels (Episodios Nacionales) form a series that tells the history of Spain's long struggle against royalty and the Church. Some of his dramas also were strongly anti-clerical, and he was Republican Member of the Cortes (Congress) for Madrid. No other man did as much as this distinguished atheist for the emancipation of Spain. Yet the British Society of Literature presented its…

Gallatin, Albert
(1761-1849), statesman. Educated in Europe, where he adopted Deism. Returning to the States he made a fortune and entered politics, serving as Secretary to the Treasury at one time and then Minister to France. He attacked slavery, war and other evils, and was one of the founders of New York University, so that America should have 'a foundation free from the influence of the clergy.' They soon wormed their way in, of course, and Gallatin walked out in disgust. His son James confirms in his diary …

Galsworthy, John O.M.
(1867-1933), eminent British writer and Nobel Prize winner. He was not only one of the leading writers of his time but an idealist of the purest type. He had, says the Annual Register in an obituary notice, 'an almost prophetic passion for social justice.' He gave away the Nobel money prize and maintained charities which remained secret until he died. Then, when the Society of Authors demanded that he should be buried in Westminster Abby, the clergy refused to admit the remains of so wicked a m…

Gambetta, Leon Michel
(1838-1882), powerful French statesman. Under the reactionary Second Empire and the almost equally reactionary period that followed the fall of the Commune (which sent the middle class folk back to church) it was chiefly Gambetta's war cry, 'Clericalism-that's the enemy,' that fired on the radicals. He became premier in 1881 and was an outspoken atheist and great orator. His funeral, the press said, drew the largest crowd ever seen in France.

Garibaldi, Giuseppe
(1807-1882), famous Italian soldier and enemy of the Popes. A sailor of many adventures who devoted himself to destroying the Papal rule in Italy. He contemptuously called the church 'the Holy Shop' and his quarrels with Mazzini (who was a theist) were largely over religion. In his Life of Garibaldi

Gautier, Theophile
(1811-1872), French novelist. One of the finest writers of the middle of the century though the Academy closed its doors against him on the ground that his Mademoiselle de Mauphin was immoral. all his work shows his disdain of religion.

Gay-Lussac, Joseph Louis
(1772-1850), renowned French chemist. He was one of the greatest chemists in Europe at the time. He made innumerable discoveries in the science, and even the restored royalty made him a Peer of France, although he worked politically with the anti-clericals. He was closely associated with Arago (See) and shared his atheism.

Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire Etienne
(1772-1844), famous French zoologist. He was made a canon of the Church at the age of 17 but he became a Deist and turned to science. He rose to the supreme rank in zoology and did fine work in preparing the way for the acceptance of evolution, especially buy opposing the reactionary Christian zoologist Baron Cuvier. He remained a Deist with a 'fanaticism of humanity as his religion' (his biographer says) and was advanced in politics, yet in the Revolution of 1830 he saved the life of the Archbi…

Gibbon, Edward
(1737-1794), author of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, the greatest historical work that had yet appeared. Gibbon inherited considerable wealth and was described by Dr. Johnson as one of 'the infidel wasps' of the London clubs. Yet he devoted 12 years to the most laborious research for and writing his great work, which is still a model of history-writing and remarkably accurate for a period when history was generally inaccurate. In my opinion the only parry that is open to serious crit…

Girard, Stephen
(1750-1831), philanthropist. A wealthy shipowner of Philadelphia who left nearly all his money, or $7,500,000, which is said to have been the largest fortune made to that date in America-and he was a man of great integrity of character and had begun as a poor working boy- to charity. Most of it, $5,260,000 was to be used in building and endowing a super orphanage , and it was stipulated that no ecclesiastic should ever set foot in it except as a visitor. Girard was a Deist. The estate, which is …

Gobineau, Count Joseph Arthue
(1816-1882) French orientalist. A diplomat who became a leading authority on Persian history, He was very conservative, and had been claimed as favoring the myth of German racial superiority, which is an exaggeration. The count was an andolute Deist, and the Catholic friends who tried in vain to convert him in his last days had the sacrament administered to him, while he was unconscious.

Goblet, D'Aviella, Count Eugene
(1846-1925), Belgian anthropologist. A Liberal, at one time professor at Brussels University of the history of religions, but so well known as a freethinker that when he was invited the Hibbert Lectures at Oxford, the authorities of Balliol College refused the use of a room for the purpose

Godkin, Edwin Lawrence, D.C.L.
(1831-1902), journalist. Son of a Presbyterian clergyman who gave up his belief at college. He was admitted to the New York bar but preferred journalism, and he founded and edited The Nation. He was one of the most respected editors in America and a non-Christian theist (Life and Letters of E. L. Godkin, 1907. p 35).

Godwin, Mary Wollstonecraft
(1759-1797), British writer. As Mary Wollstonecraft she was one of the best known women in London from 1790 on. She replied to Burke's attack on the French Revolution and pleaded the rights of women. She married Godwin (next paragraph) in the last year and died giving birth to the girl who became Shelly's wife.

Godwin, William
(1746-1836), radical leader. From Calvinist minister he became an atheist and one of the leaders of the British Radicals. His Political Justice was long a classic of reform. In later years he became more conservative and a vague Pantheist.

Goeth, Johann Wolfgang Von
(1749-1832), Germany's greatest poet. He and Schiller led the emancipation of Germany and, especially in their Xenien (a collection of caustic epigrams, including many of religion), founded a freethought literature in that country. He was a Panthiest and skeptical about a future life. 'The sensible man leaves the future out of consideration,' he said. I have given a full account of his attitude to religion and his fine record in science in my biography of the great poet.

Goncourt, Edwmond Louis Antoine De
(1822-1896) and Jules Alfred Huet DeThe Goncourt brothers, who collaborated in their books were in the front rank of the brilliant writers of France in the second half of the last century. They published a large number of exquisitely written novels and biographies. They were both atheists. In a collection of epigrams (Idees et sensations) they define religion as 'part of a woman's sex,' supernatural religion as 'wine without grapes,' and life as 'the unisruct of an aggregation of molecules.'

Gorky, Alexei Maximovich Peskov
(1868-1936), the famous Russian novelist. Wrote as 'Maxim Gorki,' in earlier years a shop-boy, painter, cook's boy, baker, porter, hawker, watchman, and lawyer's clerk. He warmly accepted the Revolution, and had a contempt of all religion.

Gourmont, Remy De
(1858-1915), French novelist. Another of the brilliant writers (novels, poems and essays) of the mid-century. He belonged artistically to the Symbolist school but he was a resolute atheist. In his Promenades philosophiques he says that 'while religion was always a pahanism to the crowd, paganism was almost always the religion of superior minds,' and that God is 'not all that exists but all that does not exist.'

Grant, Ulysses Simpson
(1822-1885), 18th President of the United States. Chief General in the Civil War and President 1868 to 1877. His principal biographer, Hamlin Garland (U.S. Grant, 1898) says that he 'subscribed to no creed'. (p. 522). The Rev. M.J. Cramer (U.S. Grant, 1898) trims. At one point he \says that Grant 'believed the fundamental doctrines of the Christian religion' - just as they often say that a freethinker is 'a good Christian in the true sense' - at another that he only prayed 'mentally' (he does no…

Green, John Richard
(1837-1883), British historian. He became irreligious at Oxford, was converted and ordained, then rejected Christianity and the belief in immorality. His heresies are confined to his letters, in which he sets out to 'fling to the owls and the bats these old and effete theologies of the worlds' childhood' (p. 292). His Short History of the English People is a classic.

Gregorovius, Ferdinand
(1821-1881), German historian. Of his many works his History of the City of Rome in the Middle Ahes

Grey, Earle Albert Henry George
(1851-1917). British statesman. At one time Administrator of Rhodesia and later Governor of Canada. A very straight and idealistic statesman. In my life of G. J. Holyoake I have a quoted letter to him in which Earl Grey says that 'the four men who opened the eyes of mankind most widely to the truths of human brotherhood' were Christ, Mazzini (a non-Christian theist), Robert Owen (an atheist) and Holyoake (an agnostic).

Grote, George. D.C.L., Ll. D.,
(1794-1871), British historian and reformer. A London banker who made such progress in scholarship that his History of Greece

Guyot, Yves
(1843-1928), eminent French economist and statesman, member of Political and Social Science and the English Royal Statistical Society. President of several French societies and at one time Minister of Public Works. From early life, when he edited a freethought paper, he was an outspoken atheist and wrote several works criticizing religion.

Habnson, Sir Richard Davies
(1805-1876), Chief Justice of South Australia. He was also Chancellor of Adelaide University and an outspoken freethinker. He wrote The Jesus of History, Letters to and from Rome, The Apostle Paul, and other works.